
THE 




EOGRA.PHY 



INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES 



OF THE 



eberal Etiiteb ^tatjts anb Cerritories 



FORMING PART OF A SERIFS OF 

SUPPLEMENTARY READERS, 

With Maps and Illustrations. 



^% . ^ 



i:y 

MARCIUS WILLSON 

AND 

ROBERT PIERPONT WILLSON. 



Vol. I. 

The Six-New England States, the Five Middle States, 

and the Five Southern Atlantic 

States. 




Class I f 

Book_^ :__ 

GopyrightN 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE 

GEOGRAPHY 



INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES 



OF THE 



Several United States and Territories, 

FORMING PART OF A SERIES OF 

SUPPLEMENTARY READERS, 

WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



BY 

MARCIUS WILLSOX 

A X D 

ROBERT PIERPOXT WILLSOX 




VOL. I. 

THE SIX NEW ENGLAND STATES, THE FIVE 

MIDDLE STATES, AND THE EI IE 

SOUTHERN ATLANTIC 

STATES. 






Explanatory, 



The following pages are specimen selections from an uncompleted and unpublished 
educational work, the general character of which is briefly indicated by the title-page. 
These selections are put in type that they may be the more conveniently examined by a 
few leading educators in advance of the completion of the work ; and we earnestly solicit, 
from those to whom we may send them, their views of the character and plan of the work, 
and of its adaptation to the purposes for which it is intended, together with any sugges- 
tions for its improvement, which they may be disposed to make. 

After pupils have read over, in the class, the "Introductory" portions, as far as 
Chapter I., and studied the few questions on the maps of North America and the United 
States, they then enter upon the main features of the work. After the map and the map 
questions at the beginning of each chapter shall have been properly studied, it is designed 
that the remainder of the chapter shall be used for class reading, the same as an ordinary 
School Reader, and that the entire work, after the map questions, shall thus form a series 
of Supplementary Readers, — to be read, and not studied for the purposes of recitation. 
In fine, the work is designed to perform the double office of a Complete School Geography 
and a Popular Series of Readers, — the latter so supplementing the former as to carry the 
subject much further, and to make its treatment more practical and more interesting, 
than is possible on the plan now pursued in our schools. 

As the plan of adopting two series of Readers for the schools is becoming quite gen- 
eral, we suggest the query,— might not one of the series be, most appropriately, of the 
character herein indicated? We ask teachers to reflect upon the educational value of 
such a work, although it should embrace the United States only, — and then upon the 
practicability of extending it so as to embrace the whole subject of geographical study. 

It is thought that two volumes, on the plan here indicated, will be sufficient for the 
United States' portion of the work. If the rest of the world — and Europe especially— is 
to be treated as fully as the United States, three more volumes would be 'required, — five 
in all. In considering the expense to the schools, the two offices of the work should not 
be forgotten. 

The Authors. 

Vine laud, N. 7., September, 1886. 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1886, by Marcius Willson, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



Astronomical View of the Earth. 



\Jllust ration^ 



"And Earth, self-balanced, on her centre hung." — Milton. 



To man's limited comprehension, not 
only does the earth on which he dwells ap- 
pear to be a flat surface, and at rest, while 
the sun and stars revolve around it, but 
it seems to be the greatest of the heavenly 
bodies, and to occupy the very centre of 
the universe. 

In opposition to all this, science informs 
us that the earth is a round body — a globe 
or ball; and that instead of being greater 
than the sun or the stars, and at rest, it 
is one of the smallest of many millions of 
heavenly bodies that are moving in har- 
monious orbits through the realms of in- 
finite space. 

But science has for us greater surprises 
than this. The stars which are visible 
in a clear, moonless night, appear to 
be very numerous — so numerous, indeed, 
that about 5,000 of these twinkling orbs 
can be seen by the naked eye ; and yet the 
total number of stars visible by means of 
the best telescopes is estimated at five 
hundred thousand millions ! which is a hun- 
dred million times as many as can be seen 
by the naked eye ; a number far beyond 
the power of the imagination to grasp. 

Our sun is an immense body; but 
figures can give us no adequate idea of its 
magnitude, even when we know that it is 
nearly a million and a half times larger 
than our earth. Perhaps we can better 
realize its vastness if we will imagine it 
placed in the earth's position; for we know 
that it would then fill the heavens in every 



direction, to a distance of more than 
190,000 miles beyond the moon's orbit. 
It would seem, indeed, that there could be 
scarcely sufficient room in the universe for 
another orb of such dimensions ; yet Sirius, 
the " Dog Star," if it may be measured by 
the volume of light which it emits, is more 
than a hundred times larger than our 
sun. 

Astronomers tell us that our sun is one 
of the stars in the Milky Way, and that it 
is probably much smaller than many of the 
eighteen millions of its neighboring stars 
which the telescope reveals to us in that 
cluster alone. It is, therefore, but a spark 
among them ; and although the Milky 
Way itself, which appears like a broad 
streak of light across the heavens, is an 
immense concourse of suns, it is merely a 
nebula or cloud mist of stars, beyond 
which other nebulae, with their countless 
systems of worlds upon worlds, stretch 
away into infinity. Infinitely small, then — - 
a mere globule in the immensity of space — 
is our earth in the eyes of the astronomer, 
when compared with even the little that we 
know of the vast universe of God. It is 
less than a grain of sand by the side of a 
mass of mountains. 

But the distances that separate even the 
visible fixed stars from one another are no 
less wonderful than the magnitudes of these 
bodies. Our minds cannot grasp these dis- 
tances, and the really inconceivable swift- 
ness of light is their onlv fitting measure. 



ASTRONOMICAL. 



Traveling at the immense rate of 192,000 
miles in a second of time, light would pass 
nearly eight times around our earth in that 
brief interval : it is nearly eight minutes 
and a quarter in coming from the sun to 
us, while sound would require fifteen years 
to traverse the same distance. The nearest 
to us of the fixed stars, which is believed to 
be Alpha Centauri — a bright star in the 
Southern Hemisphere — is not less than 
twenty millions of millions of miles distant, 
and a ray of light from it would require 
three and a half years to reach us. 

The star Sirius alone, also one of our 
near neighbors, and the brightest star in 
the heavens, is believed to be three and a 
half times the distance of Alpha Centauri 
— or seventy millions of millions of miles 
distant. Hence its light is more than 
twelve years in reaching us. Yet the dis- 
tances of these two stars from us is small, 
compared with the distances that separate 
some of the visible fixed stars ; for it is 
believed that, even on the little verge of 
creation which we can scan, the telescope 
brings to our vision stars that are so distant 
from one another that light would require 
centuries upon centuries to cross the abyss 
between them ; and if all the fixed stars 
should be blotted out of existence to-day ; 
they would continue to shine upon our 
planet — some of the nearest of them for a 
few years, but myriads of them probably 
for thousands of years to come. 

Of the wonderful and rapid motions of 
our earth we have yet to speak. Its equa- 
torial movement, caused by its daily rota- 
tion on its axis, is about eighteen miles per 
minute, which is equal to the flight of a 25- 
pound cannon ball impelled by thirteen 
pounds of powder. At the same time the 
earth is moving, in its orbit around the sun, 
at the immense rate of more than eleven 
hundred miles per minute, — more than sixty 
times the rapidity of a cannon-ball. Nor is 



this all : it has another motion. Together 
with all the other planets of our solar system, 
and accompanied by its and their satellites, 
the earth is borne along by the sun at the 
rate of not less than 150 millions of miles in 
a year, toward a distant point in the heav- 
ens in the constellation Hercules, — perhaps 
around some great central sun of the uni- 
verse. Thus, in process of time, after 
many thousands of years — if there should 
then be inhabitants on our earth — new 
heavens will be revealed to them, while the 
starry host that we now look upon will 
have faded away in the distance, along the 
course which our little planetary system 
has been traveling. But even at the rapid 
rate at which we are moving it would take 
more than a hundred and thirty thousand 
years to reach our nearest neighbor among 
the fixed stars — that Alpha Centauri, of 
which we have spoken — even if we were 
moving directly toward it. 

The various movements of the earth — 
on its axis, in its orbit around the sun, and 
in its rapid flight through unknown space — 
form a continuous system of interwoven 
elliptical spirals, whose bewildering maze of 
complicated curves astronomers have not 
been able to calculate, and which a French 
philosopher has called " a manifestation of 
the Infinite." 

To conclude this astronomical view of 
the earth, we may well exclaim with the 
Psalmist: "When I consider thy heavens, 
the work of thy fingers ; the moon and the 
stars which thou hast ordained ; what is 
man that thou art mindful of him ? and the 
son of man that thou visitest him ? " And 
no wonder that the prophet Isaiah, when 
speaking of the omnipotence of the Creator, 
should declare that in His presence " the 
inhabitants of the earth are as grasshop- 
pers," and " the nations as a drop of a 
bucket, that are counted as the small dust 
of the balance." 



GEOGRAPHY. 

INTRODUCTORY. 



As the word Geography means " a descrip- 
tion of the earth," a definition which includes 
the countries of the earth with their divi- 
sions of land and water, their produc- 
tions and their inhabitants, it is apparent 
that many of the materials for the prose- 
cution of this branch of knowledge may be 
found everywhere around us. Let us sup- 
pose, then, that we are just entering upon 
this study ; and let us see to what extent 
those portions of the earth's surface with 
which we are already familiar, will afford us 
an application of its principles. 

I. Land and Water Divisions. 

As we look out upon the fields and gar- 
dens, we observe their boundaries; we dis- 
tinguish the growing crops, one from 
another ; we learn to name the different 
kinds of trees in the woodlands around, in 
the orchards, and by the road-side, — the 
flowers and the grasses also, together with 
the birds and the quadrupeds that meet our 
view. We notice the directions from our 
home, and are told the distances, of the 
dwellings of the neighbors ; and from the 
familiar occupations of the farmer, the mer- 
chant, and the mechanic, we derive our first 
lessons in the three great industries — Agri- 
culture, Commerce and Manufactures. In 
all this we are studying geography. 

But we may suppose that natural scenery 
has, for us, charms of absorbing interest. 
If so, in our pleasant rambles we are still 
further pursuing this delightful study. Per- 
haps a little Brook crosses the road near our 
home, and runs through the meadow below. 
As it glides over the pebbly bottom, it 
sings a song so full of the sweetest melody 



as to delight every listening ear. How 
charmingly does it tell its story, in the lan- 
guage of the poet Tennyson : 

I chatter over stony ways, 
In little sharps and trebles, 

I bubble into eddying bays, 
I babble on the pebbles. 

And out again I curve and flow, 
To join the brimming river, 

For men may come, and men may go, 
But I go on forever. 

We follow the stream upward as it winds 
around in the open fields and in the wood- 
lands, until we reach its source, which, we 
are surprised to find, is the well-known 
Spring on the hill-side, which we had often 
visited. We are told that larger brooks 
rise in the greater hill — the Mountain be- 
yond, that seems to lift its summit to the 
very clouds, and that, as they rush down 
the mountain, when the snows melt in early 
spring, or after powerful rains, they some- 
times pour, in torrents of foam, over ledges 
of rocks, and are then called Waterfalls, Cas- 
cades, or Cataracts. A very rapid flow of a 
stream of water, as we afterwards learn, is 
called the Rapids : a sudden fall over rocks 
is usually called a cascade ; but a cataract, 
as the word implies, is a mighty rushing fall 
of water, as of a great river. Such is the 
great cataract of Niagara. 

We also follow the familiar road-side 
brook "down stream," through the valley, 
and at length find its waters arrested in their 
course by a dam, and gathered into a Pond, 
when they are used to turn the wheels of a 
mill or a factory. Perhaps the stream has 
now grown so large that we can pursue our 



GEOGRAPHY. 



voyage in a boat ; and when, in descending 
the stream, we would describe the objects 
that meet our view on either hand, we dis- 
tinguish those on our right as on the right 
bank of the stream, and those on our left as 
on the left bank. As we continue our course 
down the valley, and as the stream flows on- 
ward, other streams, called its feeders, tribu- 
taries, or affluents join it, until at length the 
brook becomes so large that it is called a 
River. Mills, factories, and villages, the 
scenes of busy industries, now line its banks; 
boats, sloops, and schooners, and perhaps 
small steamers, laden with the products of 
the country around, or carrying merchandise 
upward in return, enliven the scene, and 
show how the advantages of a navigable 
river add to the wealth of the country 
through which it flows. 

Perhaps the river empties into what 
seems to us to be an immense Pond ; but 
this body of water, as it is too large for a 
pond, is called a Lake. We are told that 
the river flows onward, through the lake, 
growing deeper and broader, while more 
vessels, and larger ones, are borne on its 
surface, until, at the river's mouth, as it is 
called, its fresh waters mingle with that 
great body of salt water that covers more 
than three-fifths of the surface of the globe, 
and is called the Sea, or the Ocean. 

Thousands of brooks, ponds, lakes, and 
rivers thus pour their waters into the ocean. 
Some of the small rivers are often called 
Creeks : the streams that flow out of small 
lakes are called Outlets : some rivers are 
rapid in their course ; some are deep and 
sluggish, and one great river, the Amazon, 
is nearly four thousand miles in length, and 
one hundred and fifty miles wide at its 
mouth. The waters that thus flow into the 
ocean, from sources almost innumerable, do 
not permanently remain there, but in the 
form of vapor they are gradually taken up 
into the atmosphere, and being wafted away 



over the land they descend in mist, and 
dew, and rain, and after again filling the 
springs, the brooks, and the rivers, they 
again flow to the ocean. Thus the rivers 
run on forever and return again, in one un- 
ceasing round, and ocean is never filled to 
overflowing. 

A body of land entirely surrounded by 
water, whether in a brook, river, lake, 'or 
ocean, is called an Island ; and a group or 
cluster of islands is called an Archipelago} 
Rocks surrounded by water are sometimes 
said to be islanded, that is, formed into 
islands, as in the following description: 

A thousand streamlets strayed, 

And in their endless course 
Had intersected deep the stony soil, 

With labyrinthine channels islanding 

A thousand rocks. 

— Soathey. 

A body of land that is nearly surrounded 
by water is called a Peninsula? and the nar- 
row neck of land that connects two larger 
bodies of land is called an Isthmus? A 
point of land that extends out into the 
water is called a Cape} or headland ; and a 
lofty, rocky cape, is sometimes called a 
Promontory ; 5 that is, a mountain-like head- 
land, from which one may see objects at a 
great distance — ■ 

Like one who stands upon a promontory 
And spies a far off shore. 

— Shak. 

A deep and narrow passage between 
hills, or down a mountain slope, is usually 
called a Gorge ; if worn by a stream or tor- 
rent of water, it is a Ravine ; but in our 
Western States a deep gorge in the rocks, 
between high and steep banks, worn by a 

1 Archipel'ago, from the Greek archi chief, and pelagos sea. 
Because tne .lige'an, the "chief sea " known to the Greeks was 
full of islands, any large group of islands is now called an Archi- 
pelago. 

'-' Penin'sula. Lat. pa'ne almost, and insula an island. 

:i hth'mus. Gr. isth'ntos, a neck of land. 

4 Cape. Lat. cap'ut, the head : that is, a headland. 

'■> Prom'ontory. Lat. pro for, and mon'tis a mountain. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



water course, is called a Can' on (can'yon). 
If the tract of land between hills is wider 
than an ordinary ravine, with a stream run- 
ning through it, and embracing land suita- 
ble for cultivation, it is called a Valley : a 
more open and more level tract is called a 
Plain, and an elevated plain, although it 
may have hills within it, is called a Table- 
land, or Plateau (pla-to'). A plain, or table- 
land, that is a sandy or gravelly waste, 
nearly or wholly barren, is called a Desert. 
A fertile spot in a desert is called an o'a-sis. 
In the great valley of the Mississippi are 
extensive tracts of meadow-like lands, bar- 
ren of trees but covered with tall coarse 
grasses. Some of these are quite level lands, 
and some are rolling. Our American poet 
Bryant describes them as resplendent — 

With flowers whose glory and whose multitude 

Rival the constellations. 

These are the gardens of the desert, these 

The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, 

For which the speech of England has no name — 

The Prairies} 

But there are five divisions of land larger 
than any we have yet mentioned, and these 
great divisions are called Continents. As 
the name implies, a continent contains all 
the other natural divisions of land, and 
whatever pertains to them ; for within a 
continent are mountains, lakes, rivers, plains, 
towns, and cities, and many of those political 
divisions called States, or Countries. 

The great Sea, or Ocean, has its divisions 
also, many of which are similar in form to 
those of the land. Thus the ocean has its 
great Gulfs or Bays; and these large divis- 
ions of water are sometimes quite open to 
the sea, but are often nearly surrounded by 
land, as peninsulas are nearly surrounded 
by water. There are smaller gulfs or bays 
in large lakes and rivers. A narrow and 
deep passage that connects two large bodies 
of water is called a Channel, or Strait ; and 

1 From the L.a.tin pratu/u a meadow. French pratrie. 



we have seen that the narrow strip of land 
that connects two large bodies of land is 
called an Isthmus. A channel or strait that 
is so shallow that it can be sounded, (that 
is, measured by a plummet and line,) is called 
a Sound. The ocean has its harbors, or 
seaports, — smaller bodies of water than gulfs 
or bays, and so sheltered by the land that 
ships may anchor there in safety. Adjacent 
to the harbors are the seaport towns, whose 
principal merchants are engaged in the 
commerce of the seas, — that is, in carrying 
merchandise over the sea, from one country 
to another, or from one port to another. 

One of the most singular features to be 
noticed on the surface of our globe, is what 
is popularly called "a burning mountain;" 
but it is more correctly named a Volcano, a 
word that is derived from Vulcanus, or Vul- 
can, whom the ancients regarded as the god 
of fire. Volcanoes are generally mountain 
peaks that send forth clouds of smoke and 
steam that have the appearance of flames, 
and molten rocks called lava, from an open- 
ing at their summits, called a crater, but 
they sometimes burst out beneath the 
waters of the ocean. By some they are 
considered the chimneys — the escape valves 
of those internal fires which produce earth- 
quakes ; and hence, when the volcano is in 
action, an earthquake seldom occurs in that 
region. 

II. Mathematical Geography. 
1. Form, Size and Motions of the Earth. 

Besides the foregoing general divisions 
of land and water that are found on the 
surface of the earth, there is another impor- 
tant branch of the subject, called Mathemat- 
ical Geography, that treats of the form, size, 
and motions of the earth as a whole, and 
of the relations that grow out of them. 

It is known that the shape of the earth is 
nearly that of a globe or ball ; that its 
Diameter — the distance through its centre 



GEOGRAPHY. 



from surface to surface — is nearly eight 
thousand miles ; and that its Circumference 
— the greatest distance around it — is nearly 
twenty-five thousand miles. Moreover, as 
the earth rotates} that is, turns entirely 
around, from west to east, on one of its 
diameters, called its Axis, once in about 
24^4 hours, we have thus the succession 
of day and night ; for when that part of the 
earth where we are is turned toward the 
sun, it is day to us; but when it is turned 
away from the sun, and we are in the earth's 
shadow, it is night. What are called the 
Poles of the earth are the points at the ends 
of the axis on which the earth turns, one 
of which is called the North Pole, and the 
other the South Pole. 

2. Great Circles. — The Equator and Meridians. 

In describing the relative location and 
direction of places and countries on the 
earth, and in the measurement of distances, 
geographers use terms that are derived 
from certain imaginary lines or circles that 
are supposed to be drawn on the earth's 
surface. Thus there are what are called 
Great Circles and Small Circles. 



[Illustration.] 



parts. 1 Midway between the poles is the 
circumference of the great circle called 
the Equator, a term which means " to 
make equal ; " and this imaginary circle 
divides the earth into two equal parts, 
one of which is called the Northern 
Hemisphere (half sphere) and the other, 
the Southern Hemisphere'} When the 
sun is directly over the equator, we 
have the Equinox} that is, equal nights, — 
nights of equal length all over the world. 
This occurs twice every year. The sun 
crosses the equator, coming north, about 
the 2 1st of March, which time is called the 
vernaP equinox, and it crosses the equator 
going south about the 22d of September, 
and this period is called the autumnal equi- 
nox. It must be understood, however, that 
these are only apparent motions of the sun, 
caused by real motions of the earth. As 
the earth passes entirely around the sun 
once in a year, and in such a manner as to 
cause the sun to shine more upon the 
Northern Hemisphere than upon the South- 
ern, during our summer, and more upon 
the Southern Hemisphere than upon the 
Northern, during our winter, we have, 
thereby, the cliange of seasons. 

Besides the equator, any circle that 
passes through both poles is a great circle. 
Such circles, of which there may be an in- 
definite number, are called meridian circles, 1 
that is, midday or noon circles ; because, 
when it is noon at any place on the earth, the 
sun is directly over the meridian line that 
passes through that place. A meridian is half 
of a meridian circle, and extends from pole to 
pole. On maps, the equator is represented 



A Great Circle is an imaginary circle, so 
drawn as to divide the earth into two equal 

1 From the Latin ro'ta a wheel, because it turns like a wheel. 



1 In Geometry a circle is the plane figure bounded by the cir- 
cumference, but in Geography it means the circumference only. 

- Although, in Geometry, a sphere is a solid body, in Oeog- 
raphy the term is used to denote tlie surface of the earth, that is» 
the shell of the sphere proper. 

:; Equinox. Lat ASguus equal, and nox night. 

4 Vernal. Lat. ver spring, or vernalis belonging to spring. 

1 Meridian . Lat. Me-r id'i-cs noon, from medius middle, and 
dies day. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



by an east and west line, and the meridians 
by north and south lines. 

As even - circle, great or small, is divided 
into 360 equal parts, called degrees, and as 
the circumference of the earth is nearly 
25,000 miles, it will be seen that the length 
of a degree of this " great circle " is nearly 
691^ statute miles of the United States. 
It will be seen, also, that the distance from 
the equator to either pole is one-fourth of 
the circumference, that is, 90 degrees, or 
about 6,250 miles. 

3. Small Circles. — Tropics, Polar Circles a fid 
Parallels of Latitude. 

Tropics. What is called a Geographical 
Small Circle, is a circle that divides the 
earth into two unequal parts. Portions of 
many such circles are represented on maps, 
and all of them are east and west lines par- 
allel to the equator. Of these there are 
two important circles, the one 231^ degrees 
north of the equator, called the Tropic of 
Cancer ; the other at the same distance 
south of the equator, and called the Tropic 
of Capricorn. These circles are thus drawn 
on maps to designate the greatest distance, 
north and south of the equator, to which 
the sun appears to travel annually, giving 
us mid-summer when the sun is at its ex- 
treme limit north of the equator, and mid- 
winter when it is at its extreme limit south 
of the equator. 

The two tropics are thus named because, 
at these limits the sun, after appearing to 
stand still for several days, seems to turn 
back on its course, the word tropic being 
derived from the Greek word that means 
"a turning about." 1 At the northern limit 
of its course the sun is said to be in the 
summer solstice, about the 21st of June; 
and when at its southern limit, about the 
2 1 st of September, it is said to be in the 

1 Tropic. Greek, trop'e, a turning, from trcp'o to turn. 



zvinler solstice. The appropriateness of the 
term solstice is apparent when it is known 
that it is derived from two Latin words, sol 
the sun, and sis'te-re to stand. There is a 
like appropriateness in the use of the terms 
Cancer and Capricorn to designate the two 
tropics, or turning points, inasmuch as the 
constellation of stars known to the ancients 
as " Cancer, the Crab," marks the northern 
limit of the sun's apparent course in the 
heavens, and " Capricorn, the Goat," the 
southern limit. Nearly all our geographical 
terms are of Greek or Latin origin. 

Polar Circles. At the distance of 23^ 
degrees from each pole are two other im- 
portant small circles parallel to the equator. 
The northern is called the Arctic Circle, from 
the Greek word arktos a bear, because the 
Arctic Circle is apparently situated directly 
under that constellation of stars known to 
the ancients as the Great Bear. To all 
places on the Arctic Circle the sun comes 
exactly to the Horizon, without descending 
below it, at midnight of the day of the 
summer solstice ; and the day at those places 
is at that period 24 hours long, and has no 
night. 

The southern circle, corresponding to 
the Arctic Circle, is called the Antarctic 
Circle, because it is opposite to the other, 
(anti arctic.) At the time of our summer 
solstice the night is 24 hours long on the 
Antarctic Circle, and has no day, except 
merely a brief interval of twilight. From 
the polar circles to the poles the days 
lengthen into weeks and months during 
one half of the year, and the nights lengthen 
in like manner during the other half of the 
year. At Upernavik (oo'per-naVik), the 
most northern settlement in Greenland, the 
longest day is a little more than two months, 
and at the poles the year consists of one 
day and one night, each six months long. 
When it is day at the North Pole it is night 
at the South Pole. 



GEOGRAPHY. 



Parallels of Latitude. In addition to the 
two Polar circles and the two tropics, nu- 
merous other small circles, called Parallels 
of Lai i tilde, 1 may be supposed to be drawn 
around the earth parallel to the equator, 
and on both sides of it. On maps they are 
east and west lines, and where a large ex- 
tent of country is mapped, they are made 
to curve away from the line of the equator, 
when the latter is a straight line, to repre- 
sent the globe-like form of the earth. They 
mark off the number of degrees, called 
" degrees of latitude," from the equator to 
the poles. Places north of the equator are 
said to be in north latitude, and those south 
of it in south latitude. Thus the principal 
northern line of Pennsylvania is in north 
latitude, 40 degrees north of the equator, 
and each degree of latitude measures about 
69^ miles. The farther a place is north or 
south from the equator, the higher is said to 
be its latitude. 

4. Longitude. 

The word Longitude 2 is used to de- 
note distance east and west from any 
selected meridian, and is measured on 
the equator, or on any parallel of latitude ; 
but as degrees of longitude are reckoned in 
both directions from the selected meridian, 
they cannot exceed 180 degrees, the semi- 
circumference of the earth. Moreover, 
while a degree of longitude measures about 
69^ miles at the equator, the same as a 
degree of latitude, the degrees of longitude 
diminish in length toward the poles, and at 
those imaginary points they are of no length 
whatever. The meridian line from which 
longitude is generally reckoned is the 
meridian of the Royal Observatory at 
Greenwich, on the east bank of the Thames, 
near London; but on American maps the 
meridian of Washington is frequently used. 



1 Latin, latus broad, or latititdo, breadth. 
- Latin, longus long, or longitudo length. 



The earth is not a complete globe, but is 
somewhat flattened at the poles and bulged 
out at the equator, whereby the polar di- 
ameter is 26 miles less than the equatorial ; 
therefore the equatorial circle, on which 
longitude is primarily measured, is longer 
than a meridian circle on which latitude is 
measured. Hence, also, the additional 
reason why the term longitude, or length, is 
applied to the longer measure of the earth's 
circumference, and the term latitude, or 
breadth, to the shorter measures. 

A knowledge of the principles of latitude 
and longitude is of great importance to the 
navigator. The sailor in mid ocean must 
know the latitude and longitude of his ship 
before he can tell in what direction to sail 
in order to reach any desired port. If he 
can see the sun at noonday he can tell, by 
the aid of an instrument called the sextant, 
how high the sun is above the horizon, and 
then, from his Nautical Almanac he can 
find the latitude ; or, if he can see the Pole 
Star at night, he knows that his latitude is 
the same as the elevation of that star above 
the horizon. 

He carries with him a time piece (a 
chronometer) that keeps the time of the 
place from which he sailed, or the time of 
Washington, or Greenwich ; and he finds 
his longitude by noting the difference 
between this time and the ship's time ; for 
every hour's difference in time makes a 
difference of fifteen degrees in longitude. 
Thus, knowing his latitude and longitude, 
he looks on his map and sees the exact 
place of his ship on the ocean. 

5. The Torrid, the Two Temperate 

and the Two Frigid Zones. 

The two tropics and the two polar circles 
divide the earth's surface into five broad 
spaces, or belts, called zones. One of these, 
that between the tropics, and having the 



INTRODUCTORY. 



equator for its central circle, is called the 
Torrid Zone, from the excessive heat that 
prevails there. Beyond this on the north is 
the North Temperate Zone, extending from 
the Tropic of Cancer to the Arctic Circle; 
and on the south is the South Temperate 



Zone, extending from the Tropic of Capri- 
corn to the Antarctic Circle. Beyond these 
circles, and extending from them to the 
poles is the North Frigid Zone on the one 
hand and the South Frigid Zone on the 
other. 



Continent 

globe. 
Hill. [p. 5 
Mountain. 



[p 



III. DEFINITIONS. 

[With references to the preceding pages in which the terms are used.] 
/. Divisions of the La mi. 
7.] — One of the great divisions of land on the 



-An elevation of land less than a mountain. 
[P- 5-] — A very large hill : a vast eminence. 
Volcano, [p. 7.]— A burning mountain. 
Plain, [p. 7.]— A nearly level tract of land. 
Desert, [p. 7.] — A barren plain. 
Oasis, [p. 7.] — A fertile spot in a desert. 
Prairie, [p. 7.] — An extensive tract of country, bare of trees 

and covered with grass. 
Plateau (plii-to'), or Table-Land. [p. 7.] — An elevated plain. 
Valley, [p. 7.] — A tract of land between hills. 
Gorge, [p. 6. J — A deep and narrow passage between hills. 



Ravine, [p. 6.] — A deep and narrow hollow worn by a torrent 

from the hills or mountains. 
Can'on (can'yon). [p. 7.] — A term applied in our Western States 

to a very deep gorge, or ravine. 
Island, [p. 6] — A body of land surrounded by water. 
Archipel'ago. [p. 6 ] — A group or cluster of islands. 
Peninsula, [p. 6.] — A body of land nearly surrounded by water. 
Cape. [p. 6 ]— A point ofjand that extends out into the water. 
Promontory, [p. 6.] — A lofty, rocky cape. 
Isthmus, [p. 6 ] — A narrow neck of land that connects two larger 

bodies of land. 
Water-shed, or Divide. The elevation of land that separates 

one water system from another. 



//. Divisions of the Water 



River, [p. 6 ] — A large stream of fresh water. 

Rills and Brooks, [p. 5 ] — Streams smaller than a river. 

Spring, [p. 5.] — A fountain that springs up out of the earth. The 

source of brooks, rivers, &c. 
Feeders, Tributaries, Affluents, [p. 6.] — Streams smaller 

than the river into which they flow. 
Creek, [p. 6.] —A small river ; or a bay or recess in the shore of 

river, lake, or sea. 
Waterfall, [p. 5] — A nearly perpendicular descent of any 

natural stream of water. 
Cascade, [p. 5.] — A small flowing of water over a precipice. 
Cataract, [p. 5 ] — A great fall of water over a precipice. 
Kapids. [p. 5.] — A part of a river where the current is very swift. 



///. Mathema 
Embracing foririj size, motion; 

Geography, [p. 5.] — A description of the earth. 

Diameter of the earth, [p. 7.] —Distance through the centre from 

surface to surface. 
Axis. [p. 8.] — The line through the centre from pole to pole. 
Poles, [p. 8.] — The ends of the axis. 
Great Circle, [p. 8 ] — A circle that divides the earth into two 

equal parts. 
Circumference, [p. 8.] — A great circle : the greatest distance 

around the earth. 
Equator, [p. 8.] — A great circle midway between the poles. 
Equinox, [p. 8 ] — The time when nights are of equal length 

throughout the world. 
Hemispheres, [p. 8.] — One of any two equal parts into which 

the earth may be divided. 
Meridian, [p. 8.] — Any great circle that passes through both 

poles. 



Lake. [p. 6.]— A large inland collection of water in a hollow of 
the earth. 

Pond. [p. 5.] — An inland body of water less than a lake. 

Outlet, [p. 6.] — A water passage out of a pond, lake, &c. 

Ocean, [p. 6. J— The vast body of salt water that covers three- 
fifths of the surface of the globe. 

Sea. [p. 6.] — A large body of salt water less than the ocean. An 
inland salt water lake. The ocean. 

Gulf. [p. 7.] — A large body of water more or less open to the sea. 

Bay. [p 7.] — Generally a smaller body of water opening into a 
sea, lake, or large river. 

Channel or Strait, [p. 7.] — A narrow passage between two 
larger bodies of water. 

Sound, [p. 7.] — A channel that may be sounded. 

tical Geography. 

, circles and zones of the earth. 

Small Circle, [p. 9.] — A circle that does not divide the earth 

into two equal parts. Such are the tropical and polar circles, 

and parallels of latitude. 
Tropics, [p. 9.]— The two small circles that limit the sun's 

course north and south of the equator. The sun's turning 

points. 
Sol'stice. [p. 9.] — A point, north or south of the equator, at 

which the sun appears to stand still. 
Arctic Circle, [p. 9.] — The north polar circle. 
Antarctic Circle, [p. 9.] — The south polar circle. 
Ho-ri'zon. [p. 9.] — That circle upon which the earth and the sky 

appear to meet. 
Latitude, [p. 10.] — Distance, north or south, from the equator. 
Longitude, [p. 10.] — Distance, e..st or west, from any assumed 

meridian. 
Zones, [p. 11.] — Five broad climatic belts around the earth. 



12 



M A P 

OF 

NORTH AMERICA. 



NORTH AMERICA 



QUESTIONS ON THE MAP. 

Nor tli America. How bounded ? What 
isthmus on the south? What continents 
does it connect ? What sea is north of the 
isthmus? What islands north of the Car- 
ribbean Sea ? What country joins the isth- 
mus on the N. W. ? What country N. W. 
of Central America ? What gulf E. of 
Mexico ? What two peninsulas partly en- 
close this gulf? What gulf W. of Mexico ? 
What peninsula? What cape at the south- 
ern extremity of this peninsula ? What 
cape at the southern extremity of Florida ? 
What country N. of Mexico and the gulf? 
What division of North America N. of the 
United States? What great bay in this 
division? What strait leads into it ? What 
bay N. E. of Hudson Bay? What strait 
leads into it ? What extensive region, 
or island E. of Baffin Bay ? What terri- 
tory in the extreme western part of the con- 
tinent ? What ocean at the north ? What 
Archipelago in the Arctic Ocean ? What 
strait between North America and Asia? 

What chain of mountains in Mexico ? 
Their general course? (N. W. and S. E.) 
The name of the N. W. continuation of this 
chain ? What mountain ranges nearer the 
Pacific coast ? What chain of Mountains 
near the Atlantic coast ? What great lakes 
N. of the United States ? What river flows 
from them? What gulf at the mouth of 
the St. Lawrence ? What island E. of the 
gulf? What peninsula south of the gulf? 
What cape at the S. extremity of the pen- 
insula ? 

What great river enters the Gulf of 
Mexico from the north ? From the west ? 
What one enters the Gulf of California from 
the north ? What one enters the Pacific 
near the N. W. corner of the United States ? 
What great river in Alaska ? What great 
river falls into the Arctic Ocean ? 



PROMINENT PHYSICAL FEATURES 
OF NORTH AMERICA. 

[Physical Geography, (from the Greek p/ia'sis, 
Nature,) describes the principal features of the earth's 
surface, as consisting of land and water, atmosphere, 
climate, etc., and whatever are the natural productions of 
the earth, whether animal, vegetable or mineral.] 

The Western Hemisphere, called the 
Nezv World when it was first brought to the 
notice of Europeans by the genius of Chris- 
topher Columbus, is very irregularly shaped, 
being divided into the two great peninsulas 
of North and South America, united by the 
narrow isthmus of Panama or Darien. These 
two divisions are sometimes called the con- 
tinent of America, but most geographers 
have regarded each division as a continent 
by itself. 

North America is bounded N. by the 
Arctic Ocean ; E. by the Atlantic ; S. by 
the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and 
the Pacific Ocean, and W. by the Pacific. 
Its width in the broadest part, not in- 
cluding Greenland, is not less than 3,500 
miles, and its length about 4,500, while 
its eastern coast line, by reason of its 
numerous gulfs, bays and inlets, measures 
not less than 13,000 miles, and its western 
coast about [ 1 ,000. The total area of North 
America is about eight million square miles, 
which is twice the area of the continent of 
Europe. 

I. The Western Highlands. 

In considering the physical features of 
this continent, our attention is first drawn 
to its mountain system, which is remarkable 
for presenting, in connection with the Andes 
Mountains of South America, of which the 
Cordilleras of Mexico, and the Rocky Moun - 
tains of the United States and British America 
are a northern continuation, — the longest 
mountain chain in the world, which has 
been characterized as the backbone of the 



14 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Western Hemisphere The North Ameri- 
can portion of this chain, starting with low 
and broken ridges on the Isthmus of Pan- 
ama, rises to the height of from 3,000 to 
1 1,000 feet in Central America, with numer- 
ous volcanic peaks from 4,000 to 14,000 feet 
high. 

On entering Mexico the chain widens 
out into an extensive table-land, having a 
mean elevation of 8,000 feet above the sea, 
with a succession of terraces on either side 
leading down to the plains below. This 
table-land, or plateau, which extends from 
Southern Mexico to the shores of the Arctic 
Ocean, may be termed Tlie Western high- 
lands of the continent. It is diversified by 
several mountain ranges that have a general 
northwest direction parallel to the Pacific 
coast, with frequent interlocking spurs. 

The entire region between the several 
coast ranges and the Rocky mountain chain 
on the east, is a broad plateau belt, from 
4,000 to 5,000 feet high in the middle por- 
tions, but falling off toward the north and 
the south, while the mountain ridges often 
rise from 4,000 to 6,000 feet above the 
plateau, and numerous peaks considerably 
higher. 

The principal rivers of this Western 

Highland division are the Rio Grande (ri'o 

grand), which flows into the Gulf of Mexico 

the Colora'do, which discharges its waters 

into the Gulf of California, the Columbia, 

which, rising in the Rocky Mountains of 

British Columbia, enters the Pacific Ocean 

in United States territory, and the Yukon, 

a great river of Alaska, which falls into the 

North Pacific near Behring's Strait. 

II. The Eastern Highlands and 
Atlantic Plain. 

Running nearly parallel to the Atlantic 

Coast is what is called the Eastern Highland 

Belt, comprising the Appalachian system of 

mountains, which, starting from the Gulf 

of St. Lawrence, pursues a southwesterly 



course for 1,300 miles, and extends nearly 
to the Gulf of Mexico. This mountain sys- 
tem also, like the Western, consists of sev- 
eral parallel ridges, but their average height 
is less than one-third the height of the 
Rocky Mountain system. Eastward of this 
belt is the Atlantic Coast Plain, sloping 
down to the sea, having an average width 
of about 100 miles. 

III. The Mississippi Basin. 

Lying between the Rocky Mountains on 
the west and the Appalachian ranges on 
the east, and extending from the head 
waters of the Mississippi and Missouri 
Rivers on the north, to the Gulf of Mexico 
on the south, is the Great Basin of the 
Mississippi River and its tributaries, form- 
ing a low central valley, gradually rising 
into broad elevated plains on the west, and 
plains of much less extent and less eleva- 
tion on the east. This section is wholly 
embraced within the United States. 

IV. The Great Northern Slope. 

Extending across the central part of the 
continent from the Rocky Mountains to the 
Atlantic, and above the head waters of the 
Missouri and Mississippi, and of the streams 
from the north that flow into the Great 
Lakes and the St. Lawrence, is a broad and 
low swell of land, but little above the com- 
mon level of the surrounding country. This 
is the water-shed that divides the rivers 
that flow northward to Hudson's Bay and 
the Arctic Ocean, from those that find 
their way to the Atlantic by the St. Law- 
rence and the Gulf of Mexico. 

The vast region north of this water-shed 
and east of the Rocky Mountains is mostly 
a bleak and barren waste, overspread with 
innumerable lakes, and nearly all of it in- 
capable of cultivation, with the exception 
of the Manitoba country lying adjacent to 
our northern boundary, north of the Missouri 
River. 



NORTH AMERICA. 15 

The most important river in this north- branch, the Great Lake Basin of North 

ern slope of the continent is one that rises America. The St. Lawrence River, which 

in the Rocky Mountains, passes through may be said to have its source in the head 

Lake Athabasca, and Great Slave Lake, and waters of Lake Superior, and to embrace in 

discharges its waters into the Arctic Sea. its course the great chain of lakes or inland 

Under its several names, Athabasca near its seas, — Superior, Michigan, Huron, St. Clair, 

source, Slave River between the two lakes, Erie, and Ontario — is thus the grand out- 

and Mackenzie River at the north, it is let of the largest fresh-water lake system in 

about 2,300 miles long. It drains the great the world. Including the line of the border 

northern plain of the continent, as the Mis- lakes, and not taking into account Lake 

sissipi and its branches drain the great Michigan, its course has been estimated at 

southern plain. Numerous smaller rivers 2,000 miles, and the shore line of the five 

flow into the great inland sea cf British lakes at about 5,600 miles. 

America, called Hudson's Bay. Such are the prominent physical features 

of North America, briefly outlined in five 

V. The Great Lake Basin. great natural divisions. By keeping these 

A little north of the sources of the Mis- in mind as he proceeds through the follow- 

sissippi River, the swell of land that forms ing pages, the student will be the better 

the great east and west dividing ridge of enabled to appreciate the commanding 

the continent, sends off a low branch that position occupied, and the peculiar advan- 

passes south of the great chain of lakes, and tages enjoyed, by the great central nation 

eastward to the Atlantic, thus forming, of the continent, — the United States of 

between the main divide and its southern America 



i6 



MAP. WESTERN HALF OF THE UNITED STATES. 



QUESTIONS ON THE MAP. 

I . How are the United States bounded ? 

2. Through what four of the Western High- 
land States and Territories does the prin- 
cipal chain of the Rocky Mountains extend ? 

3. Name the other seven Western Highland 
States and Territories. 

4. What three are on the Pacific Coast ? 
5. Name the 18 that are on the Atlantic 
Coast and Gulf of Mexico. 6. Eight that 
border on the Great Lakes. 



7. Five east of the Mississippi that bor- 
der on that river. 8. Five west of the Mis- 
sissippi that border on that river. 9. Five 
west of these that border on the Rocky 
Mountain States. 

10. What five States (and Territories) 
extend the farthest north ? II. Which one 
extends the farthest east? 12. What two 
states arc the most southern ? 



MAP. EASTERN HALF OF THE UNITED STATES. 



MAP 

OF THE 

UNITED STATES. 



13. What one state east of the Missis- 
sippi not yet mentioned? 14. On what 
five states does it border? 15. What six 
states east of the Hudson River ? 

16. What are the three principal western 
tributaries of the Mississippi River? 17. 
Its principal eastern tributary? 18. Of 
2 A 



what five states does the Ohio River form 
part of the boundary? 

19. What bay south of New Jersey? 
Its two capes ? 20. What bay east of Vir- 
ginia ? 2 1 . Its two capes ? What cape on 
an island east of North Carolina ? 

22. What five great lakes form part of 
the boundary between the United States 
and Canada? What large river? 23. 
Where is Lake Michigan? 24. Lake Cham- 
plain ? 



i8 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



THE UNITED STATES. 



I. General Description. 

The central portion of the North Ameri- 
can continent, extending from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, and lying between the British 
Possessions on the north and the Gulf of 
Mexico and the Republic of Mexico on the 
south, is comprised in the Republic of the 
United States of America; in addition to 
which the Republic owns the territory of 
Alaska, at the northwestern extremity of 
the continent. 

The length of the United States, from 
Cape Cod on the Atlantic, to the Pacific, is 
about 2,800 miles, and its greatest width is 
about 1,600. Its entire area, including 
Alaska, is more than three and a half mil- 
lion square miles, which is twenty-five times 
more than all the European possessions of 
Great Britain. 

There are forty-eight states and terri- 
tories in the Union, of which, twenty-six 
states are east of the Mississippi, and twenty- 
two states and territories, including Alaska, 
are west of that river. Eighteen of these 
divisions border on the Atlantic coast and 
Gulf of Mexico, and four on the Pacific, 
while twenty-six of them have no direct 
ocean communication. 

II. The Western or Highland States and 
' Territories. 

There are eleven of what may be called 
the Western or Highland States and Terri- 
tories, four of which — Montana, Wyoming, 
Colorado and New Mexico, 1 — not only 
crown the summits, but lie partly on both 
sides, of the principal chain of the Rocky 
Mountains. Adjoining these four on the 
west are Idaho, Utah, and Arizona, which, 
together with Nevada that is west of Utah, 
and parts of Washington and Oregon, 

1 Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Arizona 
and Washington, are territories at the present date. 



occupy the vast elevated plateau which ex- 
tends from the Rocky Mountains on the 
east to the Sierra Nevada range on the 
west. 

This latter range runs northward, cen- 
trally through California, Oregon, and 
Washington ; and this, and the coast ranges, 
under different names, all running nearly 
parallel to the coast, terminate in Alaska, 
a country of volcanic origin, in which there 
are more than sixty volcanic peaks, some 
eight or ten of which are active volcanoes. 

In the western portion of the great 
mountain plateau, and having the Wahsatch 
range on the east, is what is called The 
Great Basin, which extends over Nevada, 
western Utah, and southern Oregon. Its 
lower portions are more than 4,000 feet 
above the level of the sea. It contains 
numerous salt water lakes, that have no 
outlet, the most important of which is the 
Great Salt Lake of Utah. Farther east, 
between the lofty Wahsatch range and the 
Rocky Mountains proper, is the Colorado 
plateau, which is from 2,000 to 3,000 feet 
higher than the Great Basin. On the east- 
ern border of this plateau the Rocky Moun- 
tains attain their greatest elevation, and 
here are more than two hundred peaks that 
rise to an altitude of thirteen or fourteen 
thousand feet above the level of the sea. 

These mountains, piercing the blue sky 

With their eternal cones of ice, — 
The torrents dashing from on high, 

O'er rock and crag and precipice, — 
Change not, but still remain as ever, 

Unwasting, deathless, and sublime, 
And will remain while lightnings quiver, 

Or stars the hoary summits climb, 
Or rolls the thunder-chariot of eternal time. 

—Albert Pike. 

A little further north, in the northwest 



THE UNITED STATES. 



J 9 



corner of Wyoming Territory, is the Yel- 
lowstone National Park, from seven to eight 
thousand feet above the sea level, and 
hemmed in by mountain ranges from two 
thousand to four thousand feet higher, that 
are covered with perpetual snow. No other 
portion of the globe so abounds in natural 
curiosities. Its numerous spouting geysers, 
its lake, its thousands of hot springs, its 
waterfalls, its grand canon more than 350 
feet high — all, combined, have given to this 
region its well-merited name — the " Won- 
derland of America." 

III. The Mississippi Valley System. 

Most of the states lying between the 
Rocky Mountains on the west and the 
Appalachian chain on the east, belong to 
the great Mississippi Valley System, as 
nearly all of them are mostly or wholly 
drained by the Mississippi River and its 
tributaries. From this large group we must 
except Michigan on the north, and Alabama 
and Texas on the south, as the drainage of 
the former is into the Great Lakes, and of 
the latter into the Gulf of Mexico direct ; 
while New York divides her tribute between 
the Lakes and the Atlantic; and Ohio is 
drained into Lake Erie and the Mississippi. 

The Mississippi River itself, which claims 
the first rank among the rivers of America, 
is the distinguishing feature of the region 
occupied by the Central states ; and so 
many are the advantages derived trom it 
that, aided by a fertile soil and genial climate, 
it has necessarily moulded, to a great ex- 
tent, the character of the industries and 
resources of the vast and growing popula- 
tion gathered there. Its superiority over 
other great rivers of the continent was rec- 
ognized by the Indians, who called it "The 
Father of Waters." 

Its source has been traced to Itasca 
Lake, a clear, deep, and beautiful sheet of 
water about eight miles long, and 130 miles 



northwest of the head of Lake Superior, 
whence, after a general southerly course of 
more than 2,600 miles, including the wind- 
ings of the stream, it falls into the Gulf of 
Mexico about 100 miles below New Orleans. 
Taken in connection with the Missouri, its 
most northern and principal tributary, which 
ought to be considered a part of the Missis- 
sippi, it is navigable 1,700 miles in a direct 
course from its mouth. Its entire course, 
with the Missouri, exceeds 4,000 miles, and, 
with the exception, perhaps, of the Nile, it 
is the longest river in the world. 

Several great rivers are its tributaries. 
Besides the Missouri, its principal affluents 
on the west are the Arkansas and Red rivers, 
and on the east, the Ohio. The Missouri 
and the Ohio are navigable to great dis- 
tances from their mouths, and the Arkansas 
and Red rivers through the lowlands. So 
level is the country through which the 
Mississippi itself flows, that from its source 
to its mouth there is nothing like a moun- 
tain to obstruct the view, and the average 
descent is less than eight inches to the 
mile. The Missouri, from the Great Falls, 
almost at the base of the Rocky Mountains 
and about 2,500 miles by its course from 
the Mississippi, has an average descent of 
only ten inches to the mile ; and the Ohio, 
from Pittsburgh to the mouth of the river, 
has a descent of less than five inches to the 
mile. 

The Great Basin drained by the Missis- 
sippi and its tributaries has three marked 
divisions. Centrally is the lowland valley, 
of varying width and of the richest alluvial 
formation, including the rich valleys extend- 
ing from it far up its tributary streams. 
Westward of the central lowlands are the 
vast upland plains of the continent, that 
stretch away more than seven hundred 
miles to the base of the Rocky Mountains, 
in a succession of gentle swells like the 
waves of the ocean when the winds are at 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



rest. These plains are made up, to a great 
extent, of rolling prairies, seemingly as 
boundless as the sea, over which millions 
of buffalo once roamed wild and fearless, 
but which are fast dwindling to timid, 
watchful, wary herds, ever scenting danger, 
and taking flight at the approach of man. 

The Plains. 

Room ! Room to turn round in, to breathe and be free, 

And to grow to be giant, to sail as at sea 

With the speed of the wind on a steed with his mane 

To the wind, without pathway or route or a rein. 

Room ! Room to be free where the white-bordered sea 

Blows a kiss to a brother as boundless as he ; 

And to east and to west, to the north and the sun, 

Blue skies and brown grasses are welded as on';, 

And the buffalo come like a cloud on the plain, 

Pouring on like the tide of a storm-driven main, 

And the lodge of the hunter, to friend or to foe 

Offers rest ; and unquestioned you come or you go. 

Vast plains of America ! Seas of wild lands ! 

I turn to you, lean to you, lift up my hands. 

—Joaquin Miller. 

Eastwardly of the bottom lands of the 
Mississippi are the rich upland plains of 
Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. The whole 
valley system is a region of prairies and 
plains, sloping from the mountain ranges on 
the east and the west to the Mississippi, 
with a gentle southern decline to the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

This extensive region is acknowledged 
to be one of the largest and finest river 
basins in the world, having an area of a 
million and a quarter square miles, and only 
exceeded in extent by the valley of the 
Amazon, while the entire length of its 
river system, all centering in one broad and 
deep flowing stream, is estimated at 40,000 
miles. Not only in the extent of fertile 
territory drained, but in the vast flood of 
waters which it carries down to the Gulf, the 
Mississippi has no equal among the rivers of 
Europe. 



Ay, gather Europe's royal rivers all, — 

The snow-swelled Neva, 1 with an empire "s weight 

On her broad breast, she yet may overwhelm ; — 

Dark Danube," hurrying, as by foe pursued. 

Through shaggy forests and from palace wall?, 

To hide its terrors in a sea of gloom ; — 

The castled Rhine, 3 whose vine-crowned waters flow, 

The fount of fable and the source of song ; — 

The rushing Rhone, 4 in whose cerulean depths 

The loving sky seems wedded with the wave; — 

The yellow Tiber," choked with Roman spoils, 

A dying miser shrinking neath his gold ; — 

And Seine, where Fashion glasses fairest forms; — 

And Thames," that bears the riches of the world ; — 

Gather their waters in one ocean mass, — 

Our Mississippi, rolling proudly on 

Would sweep them from its path, or swallow-up, 

Like Aaron's rod, these streams of fame and song. 

— Sarah J. Hale. 

Forty years ago, a European geographer, 
writing of the Mississippi River, said : 
" Though civilization has only begun to 
strike its roots and scatter its seeds in the 
wide regions through which it flows, it is 
already a well-frequented channel of com- 
munication. J3ut the boldest flights of 
imagination can hardly figure what the 
Mississippi will be when the rich and fruitful 
countries on its banks, and those o\ its afflu- 
ents, are all fully peopled, and making use 
of its waters to send abroad their surplus 
products, and to import those of oiher 
countries and climates." — McCulloch. 

For more than a hundred years, emigra- 
tion from our Eastern States, and lrom the 

1 Neva, the river on whose hanks is St. Petersburg, the capital 
of Russia. 

2 Danube, the great river of Central Europe, that flows into the 
Black Sea. 

3 Rhine, the principal river of Germany, that flows through 
extensive vineyards, past ruined castles, and is visited annually by 
a multitude of tourists. 

4 Rhone, the principal river of Southern Europe, rises in 
the mountains of Switzerland, and atler descending 4,000 feet 
enters the Lake of Geneva, whence it flows to the Mediterranean. 

5 Tiber, the river on whose banks stands Rome, once called the 
'•Mistress of the World." 

6 Seine (san), the river on whose banks stands Paris, the centre 
of fashion, the capital of France. 

7 Thames (temz), the principal river of England, but not the 
largest, on whose banks stands the city of London. 



THE UNITED STATES. 



Old World, has been swarming to these 
Western plains, planting there the towns 
and cities, the arts, and the industries, of 
civilized life. And still there is room. Our 
country has thrown wide open its portals, 
and given to the needy and the worthy of 
foreign lands a generous welcome to our 
shores, such as was never proffered to the 
stranger before. And here the native and 
the foreign born become one people, and 
have one common country. 

" We see the white sails on the main, we see, on all the 
strands, 

Old Europe's exiled household's crowd, and toil's un- 
numbered hands — 

From Hessenland and Frankenland,from Danube, Drave, 
and Rhine, 

From Netherland — the sea-born land, and the Norseman's 
hills of pine, 

From Thames, and Shannon, and their isles — and never, 
sure, before, 

Invading host such greeting found upon a stranger shore. 

" They learn to speak one language ; they raise one flag 

adored 
Over one people evermore, and guard it with the sword. 
In festive hours they look upon its starry folds above, 
And hail it with a thousand songs of glory and of love. 
Old airs of many a fatherland still mingle with the cheer, 
To make the love more loving still, the glory still more 

dear." 

" Who does not see," says Guyot, " that 
here, in this great valley of the Mississippi, 
is the character and the fortune of America; 
while the countries of mountains and pla- 
teaus seem destined to play only a second- 
ary part ? " There is, indeed, little reason 
to doubt that, as — 

" Westward the star of empire takes its way," 

the Valley of the Mississippi is destined to 
become the great centre of the population, 
civilization, and wealth of the New World. 



4. The Appalachian Range, and 
Atlantic Slope. 

The Appalachian Range of mountains 
makes the nearest approach to the sea in 
the Highlands of the Hudson, about thirty 
miles from New York, while in South Caro- 
lina and Georgia it is about two hundred 
miles from the coast. This system com- 
prises all the mountain ranges and their 
plateaus between the Atlantic Ocean and 
the Mississippi River ; but the principal 
ridges of which it is composed have received 
different names in different states. The 
most important of these are White Moun- 
tains in New Hampshire ; Green Mountains 
in Vermont ; Adirondacks, Catskill, and 
Highlands in New York ; Alleghanies in 
Pennsylvania ; Blue Ridge, with its many 
branches, in Virginia ; the Black Mountain 
group in North Carolina, and the Smoky 
Mountain range between North Carolina 
and Tennessee. 

Eastward of the Appalachian range is 
what is called the Atlantic Slope, which is 
generally hilly in the New England States ; 
and here the land, with the exception of the 
river valleys, is better adapted to grazing 
than to grain. Bordering the coast, south 
of the Hudson is, first, a lowland belt ex- 
tending as far as the Mississippi River, and 
including the entire peninsula of Florida. 
The northern section of this belt is generally 
sandy to some distance from the coast, 
throughout New Jersey, Maryland, and 
Virginia : farther south it is more swampy, 
with frequent sandy and alluvial tracts, 
which embrace some of the richest rice 
lands of the South. Between this lowland 
belt and the mountains is a moderately 
elevated table-land or plateau, admirably 
adapted to the cultivation of the cereals 
cotton, and tobacco. 

The rivers of the Atlantic slope, which 
are numerous, run mostly at right angles 
from the mountain ranges. The Hudson 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



River, with its Mohawk branch, is the only 

one that is not turned aside from its course 

by the rocky barriers of the Appalachian 

chain. 

5. Climate. 

As a general rule, the higher the latitude 
of a place, the greater the elevation above 
the sea, and the farther it is from large bodies 
of water, especially the ocean, the colder 
is the climate : but these positions are far 
from being universally true ; for climate is 
modified by numerous other causes, such as 
ranges of mountains, prevailing winds, ocean 
currents, sandy deserts, — and by causes addi- 
tional that are little understood. North 
America presents some striking exceptions 
to the general principles that regulate the 
variations of temperature. 

It is well known that an eastern is gen- 
erally warmer than a western exposure, and 
as the great slopes of the American conti- 
nent are to the east, and those of Europe to 
the west, we should expect to find the 
former warmer than the latter. But, on the 
contrary, our Atlantic states have a tem- 
perature about ten degrees colder than 
countries in the same latitude in Western 
Europe ; and if it were not for the modera- 
ting influences of the Gulf Stream, our 
Atlantic coast would be colder than it is. 
California, though sloping to the west, has 
a much milder climate than the Atlantic 
states in the same latitude. 

In localities mostly surrounded by water, 
the extremes of temperature are usually 
much less than in inland countries. Thus, 
in Novia Scotia, which is almost an island, 
it is much cooler in summer and warmer in 
winter than in the same latitude in Central 
Canada ; but the rule does not hold good as 
between the Atlantic coast generally and 
the elevated plains at the base of the Rocky 
Mountains. Thus, at Boston, in clcse prox- 
imity to the ocean, the mean annual tem- 
perature is two or three degrees colder 



than in the same latitude at Fort Laramie 
in Wyoming, 4,500 feet above the sea ; and 
at St. Johns, in Newfoundland, it is ten 
degrees colder than at Fort Benton in 
northern Montana, 2,700 feet above the 
sea. Baltimore is in the same latitude as 
Denver in Colorado, and both have about 
the same average temperature for the year, 
and. yet Denver is 6,000 feet higher than 
Baltimore. 

So, also, the heat is found to increase 
gradually from the Mississippi River west- 
ward, over the ascending highlands, up to 
the very base of the Rocky Mountains, 
and, contrary to the general rule, the ele- 
vated inland regions are here warmer than 
the eastern sections on the coast. 

Another illustration will show, still more 
forcibly, the great variation that is some- 
times found between the lines of average 
heat and the lines of latitude. Starting 
from the Atlantic coast in the 42d degree 
of latitude, with the average of summer 
heat on Long Island, the degree of heat 
that prevails there extends westward in a 
line through Pittsburgh, Cleveland and 
Chicago; thence the line rises quite rapidly 
in a northwest direction, crosses the north- 
ern boundary line of the United States, 
passes through Manitoba, and rises to the 
5 2d degree of latitude in the valley of the 
Saskatchewan River, and renders this west- 
ern portion of the Dominion of Canada one 
of the best wheat regions in the world, 
while a vast extent of country farther east 
and south, in the same dominion, is wrap- 
ped in the snows and frosts of almost per- 
petual winter. 

Although the Great Lakes on our north- 
ern border render the adjacent country 
cooler in summer and warmer in winter 
than it otherwise would be, yet there are 
no mountain ranges immediately north of 
them to intercept the cold blasts from the 
ice fields of British America, that sweep 



THE UNITED STATES. 



2 3 



across the line at every rise of temperature 
farther south; and thus we have the chill 
winds to which our Northern states are so 
subject, especially in the spring months. 

6. Our Railway System. 

The industries and resources of the 
country, which are generally treated under 
the heads, Agriculture, Commerce and 
Manufactures, will be appropriately consid- 
ered in connection with the accounts that 
will be given of the several individual 
states ; but a fitting introduction to the 
whole will be found in a brief survey of the 
wonderfully- rapid growth of our Raihvay 
System, and the great advance which it 
has already made. 

It was in 1826 that the first railway was 
built in the United States. This was at 
Quincy, Massachusetts. The road was only 
four miles in length, and was used for haul- 
ing large masses of granite by horse-power. 
When, two years later, a short railroad was 
begun in Maryland, no one dreamed of 
using steam upon the road ; but in 1830 the 
first locomotive for railroad purposes ever 
used in America for the transportation of 
passengers, was built by Peter Cooper. The 
entire weight of this novelty was not over a 
ton, yet it drew an open car filled with 
passengers from Baltimore to Ellicott's 
Mills in Maryland, a distance of thirteen 
miles, at a speed which reached eighteen 
miles an hour. 

By the close of the year 1830, there were 
23 miles of railway in use in the United 
States ; and from this time forward the 
building of railroads, their improvement in 
methods of construction, and the improve- 
ment of cars and locomotives, made rapid 
progress. Locomotives weighing from 30 
to 70 tons are now built ; they often attain 
a speed of 50 and 60 miles an hour, and it 
has been estimated that in the year 1886, 
there were 130,000 miles of railroad in use 



in the United States, — sufficient to reach 
more than five times around the earth. 

The railroads of the Northern and the 
Atlantic states, and of the Mississippi 
valley, are now so numerous that it would 
be difficult to enumerate them, or to show 
them on the map : but in addition to these 
there are already several great trunk lines 
and their branches, that connect the Missis- 
sippi valley system of roads with the Pacific 
coast. The principal of these are, 1st, the 
Northern Pacific, which extends from 
Duluth, at the western extremity of Lake 
Superior, to Puget Sound and the Columbia 
River: 2d, the Central and Union Pacific, 
which extends from Omaha on the Missouri 
River to San Francisco : 3d, the Southern 
Pacific, which extends from San Francisco 
southward, through Los Angeles, and into 
New Mexico, and thence, under another 
name, in a northeasterly direction to Kan- 
sas City on the Missouri, above St. Louis ; 
while two great lines branch from it south- 
ward, and run to New Orleans. 

Our numerous railroads already form an 
intricate net work, radiating all over the 
land wherever the resources of the country 
invite them, thus reaching nearly every 
important town, and, literally, binding our 
vast country together with bands of iron. 
All the states of our Union, however great 
their extent, — however widely separated and 
seemingly diverse their interests, are thus 
brought into one compact neighborhood of 
mutual dependence and good will. 

We no longer think of Chicago as a 
thousand miles from New York, or of New 
Orleans as a thousand and six hundred 
miles from Boston ; but we speak of the one 
as but twenty-four hours distant, and the 
Bostonian thinks of his friends in New 
Orleans as only forty hours away. Railroads, 
telegraphs and telephones, have already 
worked a great revolution in modern modes 
of thought, as well as in business relations. 



24 



MAP 

OF 

MAINE. 



Notf. — When the name of the County cannot conveniently 
be inserted, each County is designated by a number corresponding 
to the number attached to the name in the column of Counties. 

COUNTIES. 
i. Androscoggin. 9. Oxford. 

2. Arcostock. 10. Penobscot. 

3. Cumberland. 11. Piscataquis. 

4. Franklin. 12. Sagadahoc. 
5 Hancock. 13. Somerset. 

6. Kenebec. 14. Waldo. 

7. Knox. 15. Washington. 

8. Lincoln. 16. York. 



2 5 



QUESTIONS ON THE MAP. 



Bound Maine. — What is its capital, and 
how situated? Where is Ouoddy Head ? 
Kittery Point ? What counties border 
on New Brunswick? On the Province of 
Quebec ? On New Hampshire ? What 
eight counties on the Atlantic coast? 
What are the four interior counties? 

I. Mountains and Forests. — [p. 26.] — 
Of what mountain chain do the Maine 
Mountain groups form a part ? What is 
the most eastern of the peaks in Maine? 
Name other principal peaks. Which way 
from Mars Hill is Sugar Loaf Mt. ? Which 
way from the latter is Mt. Katahdin ? 
Where are Mts. Abraham and Saddleback? 

II. Rivers, Lakes and Valleys. — [p. 27.] 
What rivers drain the northern part of 
Maine ? Into what do they flow? Where 
is the mouth of the St. John River ? J What 
five principal rivers drain the southern part 
of the state ? What is their general course ? 
What large lake in the central part of the 
state ? What two Mts. near its eastern 
shore ? Where are the Rangeley Lakes ? 
Which one of these lies partly in New 
Hampshire? Where are the Schoodic 
Lakes ? 

[p. 28.] — What is the largest river of 
Maine ? What long lake does it pass 



through? Into what bay does it empty? 2 
Where is Old Town ? Bangor ? Belfast ? 2 
Castine? 2 

[p. 30.] — What large lake is the principal 
source of Kennebec River ? Where is Dead 
River ? Where is Augusta ? 3 Waterville ? 
Skowhegan ? Norridgewock ? What 
towns on the river below Augusta ? 3 What 
large river enters the Kennebec near its 
mouth? 3 What lakes are the principal 
source of the Androscoggin ? Where is 
Lewiston ? 3 Auburn ? 3 Brunswick ? 3 
Where is the Saco River? 3 Where does it 
rise ? 

Ill Coast Line, Harbors and Islands. 
[p. 32.] — Where is Passamaquoddy Bay? 4 
What other bays on the coast? Where 
are Calais (kal'is) and Eastport? 4 What 
other towns on and near the coast ? Where 
is Mount Desert Isle? 2 What bay borders 
it on the east? 2 Principal islands in Pen- 
obscot Bay ? 2 Where is Rockland ? 2 

[p. 34.]— Where is Portland? 3 What 
other towns on Casco Bay? 3 Where is 
Harpswell? 3 

[p. 34.] — Where is Pemaquid Point ? 3 
Mt. Agamenticus ? Where is York county ? 
Oxford? Aroostock? Washington ? 



1 See Map p. 17. 

- See, also, Map p. 33. 



3 See, also, Map p. 34. 

4 See, also, Map p. 32. 



CHAPTER I. — MAINE. 



Far in the sunset's mellow glory, 
Far in the daybreak's pearly bloom, 
Fringed by ocean's foamy surges, 
Belted in by woods of gloom, 
Stretch thy soft, luxuriant borders, 
Smile thy shores, in hill and plain, 
Flower-enamelled, ocean-girdled, 
Green bright shores of Maine. 



Rivers of surpassing beauty 
From thy hemlock woodlands flow, — 
Androscoggin and Penobscot, 
Saco, chilled by northern snow; 
These from many a lowly valley 
Thick by pine trees shadowed o'er, 
Sparkling from their ice-cold tributes 
To the surges of thy shore. 



26 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Bays resplendent as the heaven, 
Starred and gemmed by thousand isles, 
Gird thee, — Casco, with its islets, 
Quoddy with its dimpled smiles ; 
O'er them swift the fisher's shallop 
And tall ships their wings expand, 
While the smoke-flag of the steamer 
Flaunteth out its cloudy streamer, 
Bound unto a foreign strand. 



Bright from many a rocky headland, 
Fringed by sands that shine like gold, 
Gleams the lighthouse white and lonely, 
Grim as some baronial hold. 
Bright by many an ocean valley 
Shaded hut and village shine ; 
Roof and steeple, weather-beaten, 
Stained by ocean's breath of brine. 

— Isaac McLellan. 



Maine, the " Pine Tree State," is the extreme northeastern state of 
the Union, having for its northern and eastern boundaries the British 
possessions of Canada and New Brunswick. In extent of territory Maine 
is a little larger than the other five New England States combined, and 
embraces twenty million acres distributed over only sixteen counties. 
Its greatest length is 303 miles, from north to south, and its extreme 
width on the direct coast line, from Quoddy Head on the east to Kittery 
Point on the west, is about 218 miles. 



I. MOUNTAINS 
The surface of the state is broken and 
uneven — rocky and comparatively level near 
the coast, and hilly toward the interior — ■ 
having tracts of great fertility adjoining 
others of but little agricultural value. 
Groups of detached mountains, that are a 
part of the White Mountain Chain of New 
England, run northeasterly through the 
centre of the State about 160 miles, and 
terminate in the isolated peak, Mars Hill, 
on the borders of New Brunswick. This 
mountainous belt or plateau, the great cen- 
tral water-shed of Maine, is nearly 60 
miles in width, and has an average eleva- 
tion of about 2,00c feet above the sea. 
Among its prominent peaks are Saddleback, 
Bigelow, Abraham, Spencer, Katahdin, and 
Sugar Loaf just east of the river Seboo'is, 
whence no less than fifty mountain summits 
and seventeen lakes may be seen. 

Katahdin, the highest elevation in the 
state.is a grand solitude of perpendicular walls 
of bare granite, 5,385 feet high, encircled for 
miles by conical granitic peaks. Whenaclear 
view from its summit can be obtained, the 
country is spread out before the eye, west 
and south, for scores of miles, revealing "an 



AND FORESTS. 

immeasurable forest that looks like a firm 
grass sward, and countless lakes that have 
been compared to a mirror broken into a 
thousand fragments, that, widely scattered 
over the grass, reflect the full blaze of the 
sun." The elevation of Maine's great central 
plateau secures to the state a large and 
uniform amount of rainfall, a moist climate, 
and freedom from droughts, that give it, at 
all seasons, an extraordinary proportion of 
water. 

The wilderness, or unsettled portion, 
covers nearly the whole northern half of the 
state. It consists of a vast stretch of pine, 
spruce, hemlock, cedar, beech, maple, and 
other forest trees, that yield immense quan- 
tities of valuable lumber, and afford shelter 
for the moose, bear, wolf, and various 
fur-bearing animals, the beaver among the 
number ; of numerous lakes, ponds, and 
rapid streams, that abound in fine salmon 
and other trout ; and of occasional clearings 
and bare mountain-tops. But the striking 
feature of the whole is the extent of forest, 
the proportion of woodland to the entire 
area being greater than in any other state 
east of the Mississippi. Referring to the 



MAINE. 



continuousness of the forest, and to its soli- 
tudes, Thoreau says : 

" It is even more grim and wild 
than you had anticipated, — a damp and 
intricate wilderness, in the spring every- 
where wet and miry. The aspect of the 
country, indeed, is universally stern and 
savage, excepting the distant views of the 



forest from hills, and the lake prospects, 
which are mild and civilizing. This is not 
the artificial forest of an English king, — a 
royal preserve merely. Here prevail no 
forest laws but those of Nature. The 
aborigines have never been dispossessed, 
nor Nature disforested." 1 



II. RIVERS, LAKES, AND VALLEYS— TOWNS AND CITIES. 

It will be seen by the map that the 
WalMoostook' 1 and Aroo'stook rivers and 
their tributaries drain all the northern 
slopes of Maine's central water-shed into the 
St. John, and thence, through New Bruns- 
wick, into the Atlantic. The valleys of 
Maine on and near the St. John River are 
quite fertile, but most of the extensive 
region in the northern half of the state is 
rugged, and incapable of cultivation. South 
of the water-shed the drainage is by the five 
basins of the rivers St. Croix, Penobscot, 
Kennebec, Androscoggin and Saco. Two 
or three thousand lakes and ponds dot the 
surface of the state, and many of these form 
the headwaters of the rivers, or contribute 
to their volume on their passage to the sea. 

The largest of these lakes, Moosehead, is 
a deep body of water, 35 miles long and 
from 2 to 12 miles wide, much broken by 
islands, and with densely wooded and ele- 
vated shores of irregular outline that present 
wild and varied scenery. It is about 1,000 
feet above the sea. Spencer Mountain, near 
the east shore, rises to a height of 4,000 
feet, and Mount Kin'eo nearly 1,200 feet. 
The latter is a solid mass of hornstone, a 
variety of quartz resembling flint, that is 
said to be the largest mass of this stone 
known in the world. It was probably the 
great quarry from which the Indians of New 
England obtained the material for their 
arrow-heads, tomahawks and other imple- 
ments. 



1 In a part of its course also c died St. John. 



Moosehead Lake and Vicinity. 

Certain Indian legends relating to these 
places have left their record in names still 
retained. The imaginative powers of the 
Eastern Indians created adventures in which 
the moose, 2 the largest animal of their 
country, bore a prominent part. They say 
that in olden times, the moose were too 
large, and that a great Indian hunter under- 

1 " In the Maine Woods," hy Henry D. Thoreau. 

2 The Moose, Moose Deer, or American Elk, the largest 
animal of the d^er kind, and as tall as a horse, once roamed from 
the Carolinas to the polar regions ; but its southern limit now is 
the northern borders of Maine and New York. It is an awkward, 
clumsy, and disproportioned animal: it has an immensely large 
head, often more than two feet in length, with branching, palmated 
horns, that have an expanse, when fully grown, in the fifth year, ot 
nearly six feet, and a weight varying from 45 to 70 pounds, and 
that of the animal from eight to twelve hundred pounds. Length 
of tail from six to ten inches. Its sense of smell is very acute, and 
the breaking of the smallest twig is sufficient to startle it from its 
hiding place. The female has no horns. Color of the moose, 
ashy gray, darker in winttr, and in old age nearly black. 



28 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



took to make them smaller. To this end, 
taking his pack and kettle, and his weapons, 
he started on a hunting excursion. Over- 
taking a big moose, the head of the tribe, 
he threw away his pack and dropped the 
kettle in his swift pursuit, and having at 
length killed the moose — Kineo Mountain 
— he reduced his size by cutting slices from 
his body, which he cooked and ate. After 
that all the moose in the forest grew smaller 
and smaller. 

Confirmatory of the legend, it is said that 
Mount Kineo, when seen from the southern 
side, looks not unlike an immense moose in 
a reclining posture, — that the streaks of 
lean and fat, on the side of the animal, 
where the hunter cut his steak, can be 
plainly seen ; and that Moosehead Lake, 
with its far-reaching arms, shows where the 
antlers of the moose fell, and left their im- 
press in the soil, since filled with water. 
Hence the name, Moosehead. 

Further still, to carry out the legend, 
the most easterly of the peaks of Spencer 
Mountain still retains the name Sabota'wan, 
"the pack " which the Indian threw away, 
while the western peak is Kotad'jo, "the 
kettle." 

From the top of Mount Kineo a fine 
prospect opens before the beholder. There 
is Kotad'jo, on the east, like a great rounded 
kettle, and near by is the cone-shaped 
Sabota'wan ; while, below, are the waters of 
the lake, edged, for miles, with the unbroken 
forest green ; and at the foot of the moun- 
tain, on a level plat of land jutting out into 
the lake, is the white cluster of Mount 
Kineo House and its dependencies, now a 
pleasant summer resort. 

Among the more important lakes, be- 
sides Moosehead, are the Rangeley Lakes, 1 
in the Western part of the state, that have 



1 The principal lakes of this group are Rangeley, Cupsuptic , 
Mooselucmagu7itic , Molechunkamunk , Lower Richardson and 
I 'mbagog. 



an elevation of about 1,250 feet, and furnish 
continuous water communication for 50 
miles, terminating on the south in Lake 
Umbagog, which lies partly in New Hamp- 
shire ; — also the Schoodic or Grand Lakes, 
about 25 miles by 4 in extent, that have 
their outlet in the St. Croix River. About 
25 miles south of these is^ another chain of 
lakes, also flowing into the St. Croix. In 
the southwest lies Lake Sebago, 14 miles 
by 1 1 in extent, the source of the water 
supply for the city of Portland. 

/. The Penobscot River. 
The largest and most important river is 
the Penobscot, that rises near the Canada 
frontier, where 

" Slow sweep its dark and gathering floods, 
Arched over by the ancient woods, 
Which Time, in those dim solitudes, 
Wielding the dull axe of Decay, 
Alone hath ever shorn away." 

At first the Penobscot runs northeasterly; 
it then turns south and expands into Ches- 
un'cook Lake, two miles by twenty in ex- 
tent ; thence, some miles below, it enters a 
large group of lakes, 3 and finally after re- 
ceiving the East Branch from the north, the 
Mattawamkeag from the east, and the Pis- 
cataquis and other affluents from the west, 
it falls into Penobscot Bay. Its total length 
is nearly 300 miles. 

The Penobscot basin is estimated to con- 
tain 8,200 square miles, or 5,890,000 acres, 
and at many points the river furnishes valu- 
able water power, notably at Oldtown, 12 
miles north of Bangor, where is probably 
the largest sawmill in the world. Here the 
Penobscot encloses Oldtown Island, on which 
has long existed a village of the Penobscot 
Indians. The river has many other islands, 
several of them hundreds of acres in extent, 
and is navigable for large vessels sixty miles 

- The most important of these are Femiduiu'cook, Millino'kett 
and Twin Lakes 



MAINE. 



29 



from its mouth, to the city of Bangor, where 
the tide rises 17 feet owing to the wedge- 
like shape of the river below. This import- 
ant city, the second in Maine in population, 
has a capacious harbor, is the great lumber 
centre of the state, and second only to 
Chicago in the extent of its lumber busi- 
ness. Belfast, 30 miles from the sea, is the 
winter port of the Penobscot, and an im- 
portant ship-building city. 

Across the bay from Belfast, on a 
peninsula, is the wealthy town of Castine, 
a favorite summer resort by reason of 
its seclusion, its heroic memories, its 
fine boating and fishing facilities, and 
the salubrity of its sea-breezes. The 
history of Castine is said to have more ro- 
mantic interest than that of any other New 
England town ; and its soil abounds with 
the relics of five national occupations, while 
five naval battles have been fought in its 
harbor. 1 

It was somewhere on the banks of the 
romantic and picturesque Penobscot, proba- 
bly at the Indian village where Bangor now 
stands, that the fabulous city " Norembe'ga " 
was located by the early French fishermen 
and explorers of Cape Breton, who told big 
stories of its wealth and magnificence. The 
winding stream bore many an adventurer 
in search of this Northern Eldorado ; and 
in 1604 Champlain, the French voyager, 
sailed up the river on the same errand. 
But he found no evidence of civilization, 



1 There was a Puritan fort at Castine as early as 1626, and the 
place was long a subject of contention between the French, the 
Dutch, and the English, who repeatedly fought (or its possession. 
In 1667 the Fiench Baron de Castine came here, married the 
daughter of Madockawando, Sachem of the Tarratines, and be- 
came the received apostle of Catholicism among the surrounding 
tribes. For thirty years he was the relentless enemy of the F.nglish. 
His son by the Indian princess became chief of the Penobscot 
tribes, and long ruled his wdd subjects with much wisdom, until 
in 1721, he was taken prisoner and carried to Boston, from which 
place he soon went to France to take possession of his paternal 
estates. His lineal descendants governed the remnant of the 
Tarratines down to the middle of the present century. During the 
war of the Revolution, in 1779, the British fortified Castine, and in 
the same year utterly destroyed a Massachusetts fleet that was 
sent against them. They held the place until the conclusion of 
peace, in 1783 ; and they captured it again in the war of 1812. 



save a cross, very old and mossy, that 
marked the burial-place of a nameless 
traveler, and he wisely concluded that 
those who told of the city had never seen 
it, — that it was but a shadow and a dream. 

The Phantom City. 

Midsummer's crimson moon, 
Above the hills like some night opening rose, 
Uplifted, pours its beauty down the vale 
Where broad Penobscot flows. 

And I remember now 

That this is haunted ground. In ages past 
Here stood the storied Norembe'ga's walls, 
Magnificent and vast. 

The streets were ivory paved, 
The stately walls were built of golden ore, 
Its domes outshone the sunset, and full boughs 
Hesperian fruitage bore. 

And up this winding flood 
Has wandered many a sea-tossed daring bark, 
While eager eyes have scanned the rugged shore, 
Or pierced the wildwood dark, 

But watched in vain ; afar 
They saw the spires gleam golden on the sky, 
The distant drum-beat heard, or bugle-note 
Wound wildly, fitfully. 

Banners of strange device 

Beckoned from distant heights; yet as the stream 

Narrowed among the hills, the city fled, — 

A mystery, — or a dream. 

— Frances P. Mace, 

2. Ihe Kennebec and the Androscoggin 

Portions of the territory between the 
Penobscot and Kennebec rivers are exceed- 
ingly fertile; and the latter river, through- 
out the greater part of its course, flows 
through a highly cultivated, populous, and 
delightful region. Of the great river 
basins, that of the Kennebec and the 
Androscoggin are the most remarkable for 
the extent of their lakes and reservoirs. 
The Kennebec has its principal source in 



3° 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Moosehead Lake, from which it flows, nearly 
due south, about 150 miles. The Dead 
River, one of its largest affluents, forces a 
passage through the mountainous region of 
which Mt. Bigelow is the most important 
summit. 

Augusta, the state capital, is finely 
situated on and around the high hills 
that border both sides of the Kennebec, at 
the head of tidewater, 43 miles from the 
sea. Here immense water-power is pro- 
vided by a dam 584 feet long. Above the 
capital are Waterville, at Ticonic Falls, the 
centre of a rich agricultural district and the 
seat of Colby University, formerly Water- 
ville College ; Skowhegan, where the river 
has a perpendicular fall of 28 feet over 
ragged ledges, with a picturesque island at 
the crest of the fall; and Norridgewock, a 
quaint old town, quiet and dreamy, with 
interesting historical associations, and noted 
for the beauty of its wooded hills and its 
charming mountain prospects. 

There is a hill o'erlooking Norridgewock, 
Whose summit is a crown of mossy rock, 
Whereon the daylight lingers ere it dies, 
When the broad valley in the gloaming lies. 
Around you are the everlasting hills, 
Whose presence all your soul with worship^fllls. 
The distant mountains, purple clad, are grouped 
Like monarchs, when the golden sun has stooped 
Down toward his journey's ending in the west, — 
The amaranthine palace of his rest. 
Below, the river, like a sheet of glass, 
Reflects the glories of the clouds which pass, 
With here a wide stretch, like a lake, revealed 
By the low level of a fertile field, — 
And here but hinted at, or half concealed 
Behind the clustering maples of a grove 
Where all the day the mocking echoes rove. 

— Anon. 

In 1724, Norridgewock, then a famous 
village of partly civilized Indians, who 
planned many of the forays that long ter- 
rorized the white settlers of Maine, was sur- 



prised and destroyed by a party of rangers, 
and nearly all the Indians were slain and 
scalped. Among the noted leaders in the 
forays that this massacre sought to avenge, 
was Mogg Megone, a Saco chief, the subject 
of the poet Whittier's tragic story of that 
name, in which brief reference is made to 
that fearful day — 

" When Norridgewock became the prey 
Of all unsparing foes." 

Below the capital are the important 
cities of Hallowell, noted for its production 
of oil-cloth and cotton cloths, and for its 
adjacent granite quarries; 1 Gardiner, the 
centre of the ice industry on the Kennebec; 
and Bath, twelve miles from the ocean, the 
great ship-building depot of the state, and 
ranking next after New York, Philadelphia, 
and Baltimore, in this important industry. 
The tonnage of wooden vessels built here, 
exceeds that of any other port in the United 
States. 

A few miles above Bath, at Merrymeet- 
ing Bay, the Kennebec is joined by the 
Androscoggin from the west, that has its 
principal source in Lake Umbagog, the 
most southerly of the Rangeley Lakes. It 
has an irregular course in the state of Maine, 
of nearly 100 miles. At Lewiston, the third 

1 Granite quarries. Granite, so abundant in several of the 
New England States, and long considered the oldest of all rocks, 
derives its name from its granular (grain-like) appearance. It is a 
hard, grayish, sometimes reddish, and generally durable rock, com- 
posed chiefly of the minerals, quartz, and feldspar, with the addition 
of either mica or hornblende. Pure granite U of great strength, and 
of vast importance as a building material. It has required a weight 
of more than twelve tons to crush a half-inch cubic block of pure 
granite. (See Syenite, p. — .) 

Quar lying is often done by blasting; but this wastes the rock. 
Notwithstanding its great strength, granite is easily split. A 
series of holes is first drilled in the rock, a few inches deep and 
three or four inches apart, along the line where it is wished to open 
the stone : two iron wedges, round on one side and flat on the other, 
are then placed in each hole, and a steel wedge is inserted between 
their flat sides : the workman then passes along the line, gently 
tapping each wedge with a hammer, and so repeating the process 
until the strain causes a crack, and the rock gradually opens. 



MAINE. 



3 1 



city of the state in population, and the seat 
of Bates College, there is a fall of 60 feet in 
the Androscoggin, within a distance of 200 
feet, and the abundant water-power is util- 
ized by a system of dams costing over one 
million dollars. Here cotton and woolen 
goods are the chief manufactures, of which 
over eleven million dollars worth are turned 
out annually. Auburn, directly across the 
river, on the west bank, produces more boots 
and shoes than any other city in the state. 
At the prosperous town of Brunswick, the 
seat of Bowdoin College, and the head of 
tide-water, 29 miles N. E. of Portland, there 
is another fall of some 42 feet. 

j. Saco River. 

The last of the important rivers of Maine 
is the Saco, which rises far up in the White 
Mountains of New Hampshire, and runs an 
irregular course of about 175 miles to the 
Atlantic. Its water-power is extensive. 
The chief of its numerous falls are the 
" Great Falls," at Hiram, having a descent 
of 70 feet over several rocky ledges ; " Steep 
Falls," of twenty feet, at Limington ; 
" Salmon Falls," at Hollis, 30 feet ; — and, 
six miles above the river's mouth, at the 
city of Biddefoi d, which is next to Lewiston 
in cotton manufactures, with Saco directly 
opposite, are the " Saco Falls," of 42 feet, 
where — 

Far down through the mist of Ihe falling river, 
Which rises up like an incense ever, 
The splintered points of the crags are seen, 
With water howling and vexed between, 
While the scooping whirl of the pool beneath 
Seems an open throat, with its granite teeth. 

— Whittier. 

That part of the delightful sea beach 
below the city of Saco, but within its limits, 
known as Old Orchard Beach, is noted for 
its admirable driving and bathing facilities. 
The Saco River is a rapid, crooked stream, 
easily affected by freshets, that start in the 



mountains, and frequently cause destructive 
inundations. 

From A-gio'chook's 1 granite steeps, 

Fair Saco rolls in chainless pride, 
Rejoicing as it laughs and leaps 

Down the gray mountain's rugged side ; — 
The stern rent crags and tall dark pines 

Watch that young pilgrim flashing by, 
While close above them frowns or shines, 

The black torn cloud, or deep blue sky. 

Soon gathering strength it swiftly takes 

Through Bartlett's vales 2 its tuneful way, 
Or hides in Conway's 3 fragrant brakes, 

Retreating from the glare of day ; — 
Now, full of vigorous life, it springs 

From the strong mountain's circling arms, 
And roams, in wide and lucid rings, 

Among green Fryeburg's 4 woods and farms. 

Here with low voice it comes, and calls 

For tribute from some hermit lake, 
And here it wildly foams and falls, 

Bidding the forest echoes wake; — 
Now sweeping on it runs its race 

By mound and mill in perfect glee ; — 
Now welcomes, with its pure embrace, 

The vestal waves of Ossipee. 5 

At last, with loud and solemn roar, 

Spurning each rocky ledge and bar, 
It sinks where, on the sounding shore, 

The broad Atlantic heaves afar ; — 
There, on old ocean's faithful breast, 

Its wealth of waves it proudly flings, 
And there its weary waters rest, 

Clear as they left their crystal springs. 

— yames G. Lyons. 

1 Ag-i-o'chook, one of the Indian names for the White Moun- 
tains, meaning " the Snowy Forehead and Home of the Great 
Spirit." 

2 Bartlett' s Vales, the valley of the Saco. through Bartlett 
Township, Carroll Co., N. H. 

3 Conway, a summer resort of Carroll Co., N. H., in Conway 
township. 

4 Fryeburg, a village and summer resort on the Saco, in Frye- 
burg Township, Oxford Co , Maine. 

5 Ossipee River, the outlet of Ossipee Lake, in Carroll Co., 
N. H., flows eastward, and enters the Saco River in Maine, west 
of Sebago Pond. 



32 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



III. COAST LINE, HARBORS, AND ISLANDS. 
The coast of Maine is about 218 miles in the vicinity are Calais (kal'is), near the 



extent, in a straight line ; but it is so in- 
dented by bays and inlets, that the length 
of the actual shore line is nearly 3,000 
miles. It abounds in more good harbors 
than are found on all the coast from Sandy 
Hook to Mexico, and consequently has 
unusual facilities for commerce. On such a 
coast, where there are not only so many 
islands and narrow passages, but numerous 
rocky islets also, many lighthouses are 
needed, and more than thirty are now in 
use, to guide the mariner to and from the 
mainland. 

/. From Passamaquoddy to Portland. 

Among the largest bays are Passama- 
quoddy, at the eastern extremity, lying 
partly in New Brunswick, and Machias, 
Pleasant, Frenchman's, Penobscot, Casco, 
and Saco. Passamaquoddy is seldom ob- 
structed by ice, and has sufficient depth for 
the largest vessels. Cod, herring, and 



mouth of the St. Croix, second only to 
Bangor in the lumber trade, and Eastport, 
the port of entry of the Eastern District of 
Maine. 

The town is' on Moose Island, with high 
hills in the rear, which overlook the blue 
waters of a magnificent bay dotted with 
thickly wooded islands. The pleasant 
village and seaport of Lubec, four miles 
south of Eastport, and the easternmost town 
of the United States, is separated from the 
British island of Campo Bello by a channel 
only half a mile wide. Quoddy Head on 
the Maine coast, near by, and Grand Menon 
Island belonging to New Brunswick, are 
favorite resorts for excursion parties. 

The lumber trade, fishing, and ship- 
building, are the chief industries of all the 
towns and cities on or near the coast, of 
which the important ones, not already men- 
tioned, are Machias, Ellsworth, Camden, 
Rockland, Wiscasset, Boothbay, and Port- 
land. Ellsworth is one of the most thriving 
cities in the state, and Camden and Rock- 
land, on the west shore of Penobscot Bay, 
are the centres of the important granite and 
lime industries. 1 Wiscasset is noted for its 
fine scenery, and is much frequented as a 



Map. Passamaquoddy Bay and Vicinity. 

mackerel are plentiful. The tide here rises 

twenty-five feet. The important places in half barrels of lime annually. 



1 Lime is a white alkaline earth, an oxide of the mineral cal- 
cium, usually obtained by exposing common limestone to a strong 
red heat in a limekiln, so as to expel its carbonic acid. It is then 
very caustic, and is called quicklime. When this lime is being 
slaked, by the application of water, of which it absorbs a large 
quantity, a high degree of heat is produced, and the lime crumbles 
into a fine powder, when it may be mixed with sand and water and 
formed into a mortar that is used for cementing bricks, stone, etc., 
for building purposes. It is also extensively used as a manure to 
fertilize land. The uses of lime when combined with various other 
substances, forming what are calJed chemical salts, are very 
numerous. 

When quicklime is exposed to the air for a few days, it absorbs 
sufficient moisture to reduce it to a powder; and when barrels of 
lime get wet, sufficient heat is sometimes produced to set buildings 
on fire. The limekilns of Rockland produce about a million and a- 



MAINE. 



33 



summer resort. Boothbay is very attractive, 
with islands in front guarding its noble har- 
bor, in which, during long storms, several 
hundred fishing vessels sometimes take 
refuge. 

Between Frenchman's Bay and the 
Penobscot, and also within the latter, are 
the principal islands of Maine, including 
Mount Desert, 14 miles long by 8 broad, a 
popular summer resort, where 



locality on the Atlantic coast of the two 
Americas, except Rio Janeiro, — combining, 
as some one has said, the charms of " the 
Isles of Shoals and Wachu'sett, Nahant and 
Monadnock, Newport and the Catskills." 
The island has thirteen distinct mountain 
peaks, separated by valleys of great wild- 
ness and beauty, where nestle numerous 
charming lakes, into which flow brooks of 
the clearest and coldest water. 



Map of Penobscot 

" Rocks, left austere by winter, laugh again 
With sweet and happy hearts at summertide." 

Visitors mostly congregate at Bar Har- 
bor, a village of hotels and cottages in the 
midst of the finest land and water views, 
near the northeast extremity of the island. 

The scenery of this island is considered 
more magnificent than that of any other 



Bay and Vicinity. 

Among the stupendous cliffs that line 
the island's southeast coast, the most re- 
markable are Schooner Head, with a white 
formation on its seaward side resembling a 
schooner under sail ; and Great Head, the 
highest headland between Cape Cod and 
New Brunswick. The highest of the peaks 
is Green Mountain, which rises 1,762 feet 
above the sea. The view from this emi- 



34 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



nence is superb. Twenty miles out at sea, 
and bearing a noted lighthouse, is Desert 
Rock, that, 

Abrupt and bare 
Lifts its gray turrets in the air,— 
Seen from afar, like some stronghold 
Built by the ocean Kings of old ; 

while all along the coast, 

Beneath the westward turning eye, 

A thousand wooded islands lie, — 

Gems of the waters! — with each hue 

Of brightness set in ocean's blue. 

Each bears aloft its tuft of trees, 

And, with the motion of each breeze, 

Changing and blent, confused and tossed, 

The brighter with the darker crossed, 

Their thousand tints of beauty glow 

Down in the restless waves below, 

And tremble in the sunny skies 

As if, from waving bough to bough, 

Flitted the birds of Paradise. 

— Whit tier. 

Penobscot Bay, with its 

Winding shores 
Of narrow capes, and isles which lie 
Slumbering to ocean's lullaby — 

is the largest bay on the coast. Including 
Belfast Bay, at its northern extremity, it is 
35 miles long, and about 20 miles in width. 
Its most important islands are Deer, Long, 
Fox, and Dix with its fine granite quarries ; 1 
while, fronting the entrance, 20 miles south- 
east of Rockland, is Matinicus Island with 
its clustering islets, — and, a few miles 
further south, is Matinicus rock, where are 
two stone lighthouses, that stand off at this 
distance from the coast like grim sentinels, 
as if to give warning of approaching danger. 
On a rocky promontory a few miles east 
from Boothbay, is the site of the ancient 

l This island is a vast mass of granite, where vessels load 
directly lrom the sides of the ledges. It furnished the stone for the 
New York Post-Office, and the immense columns for the U. S. 
Treasury at Washington. 



colony of Pemaquid, that has great historic 
interest. It was the first permanent Eng- 
lish settlement in Maine (1625); and in 
1674 it was called " the metropolis of New 
England." During the Indian wars it was 
frequently plundered, and twice destroyed, 
but re-settled ; and in 181 3, a few miles off 
the Point, the British brig " Boxer" struck 
her colors to the American brig " Enter- 
prise," after a sharp conflict of only forty- 
eight minutes. On the now deserted Point 
have been unearthed ancient fortifications, 
streets, cellars, wharves, and a burial- 
ground which a poet describes under the 
title — 

God's Acre at Old Pemaquid. 

Where ocean breezes sweep 

Across the restless deep 
It stands, with headstones quaint with sculpture rude, 

Its green turf thickly sown 

With dust of lives unknown, 
Like withered leaves on autumn pathway strewed. 

Willow nor cypress bough 

Shadow the dead below, 
Nor mournful yew, by summer's soft breath stirred ; 

The dawn, and twilight's fall, 

Never made musical, 
By carol clear of some sweet-throated bird. 

Not from the sunny earth, 

Her tones of sylvan mirth, 
Her flowery meads, and plains of waving corn, 

But from the treacherous waves, 

Their rocks and sparry caves, 
Unto their rest were these sad sleepers borne. 

Perchance they had their home 

Far from the crested foam, 
And blue seas rippling o'er the pink-lipped shells, 

Some green vale far away, 

Where sweet-voiced waters play, 
And the bee murmurs in the wild-flower's bells. 

O churchyard drear and lone ! 
Haunted by voices gone 



MAINE. 



35 



And silent feet, and lives like rose-leaves shed ; 
Thy dust shall yet arise, 
When from our earthly skies 

Mists fade away and seas give up their dead. 

Anonymous. 

2. The City of Portland — Casco Bay. 
The commercial metropolis of Maine is 



to Montreal and Detroit, forms a direct 
channel for the commerce of the St. Law- 
rence and of the West. In the winter sea- 
son, when the navigation of the St. Law- 
rence is closed, nearly all the Canadian 
imports and exports pass through Portland, 
which has then a weekly line of steamers to 
England. Unsurpassed facilities have given 



Map of Casco Bay and Vicinity. 



Portland, on Casco Bay, pleasantly located 
on an elevated peninsula, and remarkable 
for its numerous churches, handsome streets 
and buildings, and expensive and elaborate 
public improvements. The harbor is one of 
the safest and best in the country, and 
numerous railroads have their termini in 
the city. One of these, the Grand Trunk, 



this city an extensive ocean commerce and 
inland trade that are rapidly increasing; 
while its manufactures, consisting chiefly of 
heavy iron goods, sugar and petroleum 
refining 1 , and boots and shoes, have an 
annual value of about ten million dollars. 
The canning of fish and vegetables is an 

1 See Petroleum , p — . 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



extensive business, and ship-building is still 
an important industry. 

Portland is remarkably healthy, and the 
city and vicinity have many attractions. 
Casco Bay, extending northeastward some 
20 miles, with hundreds of green isles stud- 
ding its bright waters, is one of the most 
interesting sections of the coast. The poet 
Whittier well pictures its varied beauties, 
and the charms of the adjacent mainland, in 

these lines. 

Casco Bay. 

Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer, 
Does the golden-locked fruit bearer 

Through his painted woodlands stray, 
Than where hill-side oaks and beaches 
Overlook the long blue reaches, 
Silver coves and pebbled beaches, 

And green isles of Casco Bay ; 

Nowhere day, for delay, 
With a tenderer look beseeches, 

" Let me with my charmed earth stay." 

On the grainlands of the mainlands 
Stands the serried corn like train-bands, 

Plume and pennon rustling gay ; 
Out at sea, the islands wooded, 
Silver birches, golden-hooded, 
Set with maples, crimson-blooded, 

White sea-foam and sand-hills gray, 

Stretch away, far away, 
Dim and dreary, over-brooded 

By the hazy autumn day. 

Gayly chattering to the clattering 

Of the brown nuts downward pattering, 

Leap the squirrels red and gray. 
On the grass-land, on the fallow, 
Drop the apples, red and yellow, 
Drop the russet pears and mellow, 

Drop the red leaves all the day, — 

And away, swift away, 
Sun and cloud, o'er hill and hollow 

Chasing, weave their web of play. 

— Whittier. 

On a long narrow peninsula that runs 
down into Casco Bay is the little town of 



Harpswell, now a popular summer resort, to 
which increased interest is given by one of 
the New England traditions that still clings 
to it. The early settlers of Harpswell, like 
those of most of the coast towns, were sea- 
faring people ; and stories of the perils of 
the sea, often mingled with superstitious 
fancies, were common among them. Among 
many such it is related that a phantom 
ship — " a sad sea-ghost," used to sail into 
Harpswell harbor and out again, whatever 
the wind and tide, whenever a sailor from 
that port had died, or a ship had gone down 
at sea. This was evidently intended to 
notify friends of the loss. We give the 
tradition as it is related in the following 
poem : 

The Dead Ship of Harpswell. 

What flecks the outer gray beyond 

The sundown's golden trail ? 
The white flash of a sea-bird's wing, 

Or gleam of slanting sail ? 
Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point, 

And sea worn elders pray, — 
The ghost of what was once a ship 

Is sailing up the bay ! 

She rounds the headland's bristling pines ; 

She threads the isle-set bay ; 
No spur of breeze can speed her on, 

Nor ebb of tide delay. 
Old men still walk the isle of On 1 

Who tell her date and name, 
Old shipwrights sit in Freeport- 1 yards 

Who hewed her oaken frame. 

What weary doom of baffled quest, 

Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine ? 
What makes thee in the haunts of Lome 

A wonder and a sign ? 
No foot is on thy silent deck, 

Upon thy helm no hand ; 
No ripple hath the soundless wind 

That smiles thee from the land ! 



1 Orr, an island adjacent to Harpswell peninsula, on the east. 
- Freeport, a ship-building village on Casco Bay, 18 miles N. E. 
of Portland. 



MAINE. 



37 



For never comes the ship to port, 

Howe'er the breeze may be ; 
Just when she nears the waiting shore 

She drifts again to sea. 
No tack of sail, nor turn of helm, 

Nor sheer of veering side ; 
Stern-fore she drives to sea and night, 

Against the wind and tide. 

In vain o'er Harpswell Neck the star 

Of evening guides her in; 
In vain for her the lamps are lit 

Within thy tower, Seguin 1 ! 
In vain the harbor-boat shall hail, 

In vain the pilot call ; 
No hand shall reef her spectral sail, 

Or let her anchor fall. 

And men shall sigh, and women weep, 

Whose dear ones pale and pine, 
And sadly over sunset seas 

Await the ghostly sign. 
They know not that its sails are filled 

By pity's tender breath, 
Nor see the Angel at the helm 

Who steers the Ship of Death. 



Whit tier. 



In the year 1635, all the territory of 
Maine between the Kennebec and the Pisca- 
taqua was purchased by one Ferdinando 
Gorges, who subsequently became gov- 
ernor-general of New England. He looked 
with special interest and pride upon the 
early settlement of Agam'enticus, now York, 
on the southwest coast, and, resolving to 
perpetuate his name, in 1642, with great 
pomp and ceremony, he erected the little 
village of a few hundred inhabitants into a 
city thathe called Gorgeana, — extending the 
limits over a region of forest on the north 
side of the inlet, embracing 21 square 
miles. 

The name of the quiet little settlement 
still survives in that of the mountain near 
the ocean, which serves as an important 

1 Segtcin, a small island off the mouth of the Kennebec, that 
has a lighthouse 203 feet high. 



landmark for the sailor, 

" Who murmurs Agamenticus ! 
As if it were the name of a saint." 

But the " Forest City," as it has been 
called, that was as good a city as seals and 
parchment, mayor and aldermen, and other 
dignitaries could make of a little village, 
and that was to be a memorial of its 
founder's pride and power, has left no record 
of its existence, and is but — 

A Spectre by the Sea. 

Where rises grand, majestic, tall, 
As in a dream, the towering wall 

That scorns the restless, surging tide, 
Once spanned the mart and street and mall, 

And arched the trees on every side 

Of this great city, once in pride. 
For hither came a knightly train 

From o'er the sea with gorgeous court ; 
The mayors, gowned in robes of state, 
Held brilliant tourney on the plain, 

And massive ships within the port 

Discharged their loads of richest freight. 
Then when at night, the sun gone down 

Behind the western hill and tree, 
The bowls were filled, — this toast they crown, 

" Long live the City by the Sea !" 
Now sail-less drift the lonely seas, 
No shallops load at wharves and quays, 

But hulks are strewn along the shore, — 
Gaunt skeletons indeed are these 

That lie enchanted by the roar 

Of ocean wave and sighing trees ! 
Oh, tell me where the pompous squires, 

The chant at eve, the matin prayers, 
The knights in armor for the fray? 
The mayors, where, and courtly sires, 

The eager traders with their wares, — 
How went these people hence away? 
And when the evening sun sinks down, 

Weird voices come from hill and tree, 
Yet tell no tales, — this toast they crown, 

" Long live the Spectre by the Sea !" 

— Anonymous. 



3* 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



IV. INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Most of the leading industries of Maine 
are directly connected with the natural 
yield of land and water ; and the chief of 
these, as already alluded to, are comprised 
in the lumber interests, ship-building, and 
the coast fisheries. Although Maine has 
fallen from the position that she once held 
as the first timber-producing state in the 
Union, her lumber industry is still a vast 
business. A great variety of superior tim- 
ber is still procurable, and the nearness and 
availability of a vast extent of water enable 
it to be easily and cheaply produced, manu- 
factured, and transported to the markets of 
the world. 

The Penobscot River is the great centre 
of the lumber trade. Its tributaries pene- 
trate the great forests in every direction, 
and when the ice breaks up with the open- 
ing of spring, the floods bear downward to 
the city of Bangor immense rafts of logs, in 
the sawing of which and the shipment of 
the lumber this city finds its chief industry. 

When, with sounds of smothered thunder, 

On some night of rain, 
Lake and river break asunder 

Winter's weakened chain, 
Down, the wild March flood shall bear them, 

To the saw-mill's wheel, 
Or where Steam, the slave, shall tear them 

With his teeth of steel. 

— Whit tier. 

Over 200 million feet of lumber are 
sometimes surveyed at Bangor in a single 
season, and about 2,000 vessels are annually 
engaged in its transportation. This indus- 
try is the chief occupation of the people of 
Penobscot, Washington, and Piscataquis 
counties. 

Closely related to the lumber industry is 
ship-building, a leading pursuit in nearly all 



the coast towns. Nearly three hundred ves- 
sels, including ships, barks, brigs, schooners, 
sloops, and steamers, have been built in 
Maine in a single year. Employed both 
coastwise and in the commerce of distant 
seas, they train up a body of hardy sailors 
who are the chief reliance of our Navy in 
time of war; and in peace they exchange 
the teeming products of our land for those 
of every clime. We here find a happy ap- 
plication of Whittier's — 

Song of the Ship-Builders. 

Up ! — up ! — in nobler toil than ours 

No craftsmen bear a part : 
We make of Nature's giant powers 

The slaves of human Art. 
Lay rib to rib and beam to beam, 

And drive the treenails free ; 
No faithless joint nor yawning seam 

Shall tempt the searching sea ! 

Her oaken ribs the vulture beak 

Of Northern ice may peel, 
The sunken rock and coral peak 

May grate along her keel ; 
And know we well the painted shell 

We give to wind and wave, 
Must float — the sailor's citadel, 

Or sink — the sailor's grave ! 

God bless her ! Wheresoe'er the breeze 

Her snowy wings shall fan, 
Aside the frozen Hebrides, 

Or sultry Hindostan ! 
Where'er, in mart or on the main, 

With peaceful flag unfurled, 
She helps to wind the silken chain 

Of commerce round the world ! 

Be hers the Prairie's golden grain, 

The Desert's golden sand, 
The clustered fruits of sunny Spain, 

The spice of Morning-land ! 



MAINE. 



39 



Her pathway on the open main 

May blessings follow free, 
And glad hearts welcome back again 

Her white sails from the sea ! 

The cod, mackerel, and herring fisheries, 
in which nearly a thousand vessels belong- 
ing to Maine are engaged, and which give 
employment to about three thousand men, 
yield, on an average, an annual revenue of 
over a million dollars. These fisheries ex- 
tend not only over her own coasts and those 
of the British possessions around the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence ; but as far north as the 
bleak and rugged coasts of Labrador, 
Maine's hardy " toilers of the seas " gather 
in their ocean harvests. It is not only a 
toilsome, but, often, a perilous occupation, 
and the men who engage in it, accustomed 
to danger, are those who are ever most for- 
ward in deeds of noble daring. A vivid 
picture of this kind of seafaring life is given 
in the following — 

Song of the Fishermen. 

Hurrah ! the seaward breezes 

Sweep down the bay amain ; 
Heave up, my lads, the anchor ! 

Run up the sail again ! 
Leave to the lubber landsmen 

The rail-car and the steed ; 
The stars of heaven shall guide us, 

The breath of heaven shall speed. 

From the hill-top looks the steeple, 

And the light-house from the sand; 
And the scattered pines are waving 

Their farewell from the land. 
One glance, my lads, behind us, 

For the homes we leave one sigh, 
Ere we take the change and chances 

Of the ocean and the sky. 

Now, brothers, for the icebergs 

Of frozen Labrador, 
Floating spectral in the moonshine 

Along the low, black shore ! 



Where like snow the gannet's 1 feathers 

On Brador's 2 rocks are shed, 
And the noisy murre 3 are flying, 

Like black scuds overhead ; — ■ 

Where in mist the rock is hiding, 

And the sharp reef lurks below, 
And the white squall smites in summer, 

And the autumn tempests blow; 
Where, through gray and rolling vapor, 

From evening unto morn, 
A thousand boats are hailing, 

Horn answering unto horn. 

Hurrah! for the Red Island,* 

With the white cross on its crown ! 
Hurrah ! for Meccatina, 5 

And its mountains bare and brown ! 
Where the Caribou's 6 tall antlers 

O'er the dwarf-wood freely toss, 
And the footstep of the Mickmack : 

Has no sound upon the moss. 

There we'll drop our lines, and gather 

Old Ocean's treasures in, 
Where'er the mottled mackerel 

Turns up a steel-dark fin. 
The sea's our field of harvest, 

Its scaly tribes our grain ; 

We'll reap the teeming waters 

As at home they reap the plain. 

— IV hit tier. 

In the production of lime, which amounts 
to over two million dollars worth annually, 

1 The Common Gannet, or Solan-Goose. These sea-birds, 
feeding on fish, follow the shoals of herrings, and thus give the 
fishermen notice of the approach and direction of these fishes. 

- Bra-dor, for Labrador. 

3 Murre, the Common Auk, or Razor-Bill. They build no 
nests, but lay their eggs upon the bare rocks. 

* Red Island, a small island on the Newfoundland coast, on 
the eastern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

5 Meccati'na, a river, harbor, and island on the Labrador coast, 
on the northwest shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

6 Car'ibou, a small variety of the reindeer, found in Labrador 
and Newfoundland, and roaming west to the Northern Pacific. 
It was formerly found in the forests of Maine. Its flesh is much 
used by the Esquimaux, and by hunters and travelers. 

" Mickmack, the name by which the Indians around the shores 
of the Gulf of St. Lawrence are generally known. The allusion is 
to their stealthy tread in hunting the caribou and the moose. 



4o 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Maine ranks next to Pennsylvania. Other 
important industries are the numerous 
granite quarries, mostly along the coast, 
that yields an article of fine grain, beautiful 
in color and very durable ; ice gathering, 
carried on principally in Kennebec and 
Knox counties, and yielding a product of 
over three hundred million tons annually ; 
the canning of vegetables, principally corn ; 
the packing of fish, clams, and lobsters, 
which latter are caught in the numerous 
bays and inlets more extensively than any- 
where else on the American coast. 

In agriculture, Maine's great drawback 
is the severity of the climate, which prevents 
many rich sections from being properly 
cultivated ; but the hay and potato crops 
are of special excellence, and afford a large 
surplus for export ; while the dairy products 
are of great value, and the wool-clip large 
and of fine quality. 

In mineral resources the state is rich, 
but its wealth in this respect is not very 
fully developed. Besides lime and granite, 
iron ore of the best quality is found near 
Mt. Katahdin, 1 and elsewhere ; an extensive 
belt of roofing slate runs through Piscataquis 
County from the Penobscot to the Kennebec ; 
beautiful ruby-red, green, black, and blue 
crystals of tourmaline 2 are found at Paris 



1 The "Katahdin Iron Works," which use bog-ore, are on 
Pleasant River, fifty miles N. W. of Bangor, and S. W. of Mt. 
Katahdin. 

Iron, one of the metallic elements, the most useful and the 
most extensively diffused of all metals, is found in combination 
with many other substances, and these give rise to differently- 
named ores, of which the hematite, a reddish, heavy, clay iron- 
stone, and the limonile (bog-ore) are very widely diffused in North 
America. Iron from the latter is too brittle for wire or sheet-iron, 
but is good for what is called cast-iron or pig-iron. Steel is formed 
by heating pure iron in contact with charcoal (pure carbonj, by 
which a portion of carbon is imparted to the iron. As between 
crude or cast-iron, steel, and wrought-iron, cast-iron contains the 
most carbon, and wrought-iron the least. — (See, further, Pitts- 
burgh, under Pennsylvania, p. — .) 

2 Tourmaline, the handsome varieties of which are highly 
esteemed in jewelry, is a crystal of several shades and colors. 
Its principal constituents are silica and alumina, with a little soda, 



and Hebron ; fine specimens of beryl 1 at 
Greenwood, Streaked Mountain and Bow- 
doinham ; crystals of feldspar 2 at Paris 
and at Mt. Desert Isle; garnet 3 of many 
varieties — red, yellow, and brown, — at many 
places; lead, in veins of considerable ex- 
tent, at Lubec ; copper at Lubec and 
Dexter ; and other minerals in various 
sections. 

But the one great resource of Maine is 
its water-power. Such is the character of 
the rivers of the state, having their sources 
in the great central plateau, flowing over 
rocky beds and descending to the sea in a 
succession of cascades, — such the amount of 
rainfall in the northern and central parts of 
the state, and its comparative constancy 
throughout the year, — so numerous and ex- 
tensive the natural reservoirs of lakes and 
ponds, — and so great the facilities for stor- 



manganese, and iron, and the different proportions of these give 
the different colors. Rubellite, is of various shades of red, some- 
times transparent ; Indicolite, blue, or bluish-black ; Brazilian, 
green and transparent ; Ceylon, honey-yellow; Achroite, colorless 
Aphrizite, black, &c. 

1 Beryl, allied to the emerald, and consisting of silica, alumina 
and the rare earth glucina, is usually of a bright, transparent, 
emerald green, found in beautiful, oblong, prismatic crystals larger 
than those of the emerald. It is the aqua marine of jewelers. 
Some varieties are of a sapphire-blue, pale violet, reddish, or 
brownish yellow. Specimens of this crystal have been found four 
feet in length. 

- Feldspar (or'thoclasc), an ingredient of granite and some 
other rocks, consisting of silica, alumina, and potash, is found in 
cleavable masses, and, also, of several varieties, in the form of 
white, red, green, or bluish crystals. Moonstone is a variety of 
resplendent feldspar. By a natural process of decomposition feld- 
spar furnishes kaolin, used in making porcelain or china ware. 
In Albite, ciosely allied to feldspar, soda takes the place of potash. 

3 Garnet, consisting of silica, alumina, and lime, with a little 
iron or manganese, is a mineral or gem, of several varieties— such 
as alumina-garnet, iron-garnet, and chrome-garnet— mostly in the 
crystalline form. It is the carbuncle of the ancients. Common 
garnet is translucent, and of various colors. Yellow garnet crystals, 
and cinnamon stone, are found in many places in Maine. The 
precious garnet of jewelers is transparent, red, and in crystals of 
rounded grains. The name is said to have been suggested by the 
seeds of the pomegranate, which are small, numerous, and rtd. 
Handsome red garnets are found at Brunswick, Maine. 



MAINE. 



4i 



ing, for summer use, the surplus water from 
the \vinter snows and spring rains, that, to 
a large extent, every stream can be, con- 
verted into an unbroken series of water 
privileges from mouth to fountain-head ; 
and thus nearly all the waters of the state 
be utilized for manufacturing purposes. 

This water-power is being rapidly de- 
veloped, and is fast giving the state strength 
and importance in manufactures. Of these, 
cotton and woolen goods, leather, and boots 
and shoes, are the leading industries, in the 
order named What the ultimate value of 
the water-power will be can scarcely be 
computed Its permanency is reasonably 



assured, and Maine has the opportunity to 
become the leading manufacturing state of 
the Union. Commissioners appointed to 
determine the character and extent of these 
water privileges, have estimated that they 
may be developed to be equal to the work- 
ing power of eight millions of men ; and 
they add : — " We feel justified in affirming 
that they will eventually be more to Maine 
than are her iron and coal mines to Penn- 
sylvania, her rice swamps to South Carolina, 
and her corn fields to Illinois Those all 
may fail; but these, based upon the un- 
changing laws of Nature, will never fail." 



42 



MAP OF 
VERMONT AND NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



NEW HAMPSHIRE AND VERMONT. 



43 



QUESTIONS ON THE MAP. 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
How is New Hampshire bounded? 
What is its length ? Its width ? What 
extent of sea coast has it ? What, and 
where, is its capital ? 

I. Its Mountain System.; — [p. 44]. What 
mountains run through the central portions 
of the state ? Of what three principal 
groups do they consist ? Name the prin- 
cipal peaks of the White Mountain group 
proper ? In what county are most of them ? 
Peaks of the Franconia group ? In what 
county? Peaks of the Sandwich group? 
Where is Mount Kiarsarge ? Mount Kear- 
sarge ? Mount Monadnock? 

What four principal streams and their 
affluents traverse the White Mountain pla- 
teau ? Where is Gorham ? Littleton ? 
Bethlehem ? Plymouth ? North Conway ? 

II. Rivers, Lakes, and Valleys. — 
[p. 51]. Describe the Connecticut River ? 
What are its principal eastern tributaries? 
The principal New Hampshire towns of the 
Connecticut valley ? Where is Lebanon ? 
Claremont ? Keene ? Describe the Merri- 
mack River ? Where is Plymouth ? Frank- 
lin ? Concord ? Manchester ? Nashua ? 
Where is Squamscot River? The Piscata- 
qua? Where is Exeter ? Dover? Ports- 
mouth? 

In what part of the state is the Lake 
Region ? What is the largest lake ? In 
what direction from it is Ossipee Lake ? 
Squam Lake ? Sunapee Lake ? New- 
found Lake ? 

III. Coast Line and Islands. — [p. 58]. 
What places on and near the coast ? How 
is Portsmouth situated ? What islands off 
the coast ? What counties border on 
Maine? On Vermont? On Massachu- 
setts? What two counties in the interior? 



VERMONT. 
[To be studied in connection with Chap. III.] 



44 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



CHAPTER II. — NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



This state, called the " Granite State," 
from the preponderance of granite rock in 
its geological formation, lies between Maine 
and Vermont, and covers an area of about 
9,300 square miles. It is 180 miles long 
from north to south, and varies in width 
from 19 miles at its northern extremity to 
90 miles near the southern boundary. Of 
its six million acres, 1 1 0,000 are covered by 
lakes and rivers, and less than two-fifths of 
its area are improved land. The state is well 
wooded, and in the deep forests of the 
northern part the wolf and the bear are still 
found. 

The prominent physical feature of New 
Hampshire is the long mountainous ridge, or 
watershed, that follows the course of the east- 
ern rim of the Connecticut River basin, and, 



north of the centre of the state spreads across 
to the eastern boundary. This ridge, and the 
Merrimack River flowing south from it, 
naturally divide the state into four sections, 
of which the southeast section, between the 
Merrimack and the eastern boundary, has 
the least elevation, and contains the largest 
tracts of fertile soil, and most of the impor- 
tant towns and cities. The average eleva- 
tion of the state is 1,200 feet above the sea, 
and the climate is colder, but more steady, 
than that of Maine. Along the ocean front 
of 18 miles, level plains stretch inland for 
some distance ; but the surface is generally 
rough and hilly, affording better pasturage 
than tillage, except in some of the river 
valleys, where the soil is exceedingly fertile 



I. THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 



This mountain chain of New England, 
that begins near the headwaters of the 
Aroos'took River in Maine, has its fullest 
development in New Hampshire, where the 
highest portion of the chain extends south 
of the Androscoggin River about 40 miles, 
to the large lakes in Carroll County, and 
runs westward nearly across the state. The 
term " White Mountains," in its popular 
sense, or as used by tourists, specially refers 
to this section of the range, which consists 
of a plateau from 1,600 to 1,800 feet high, 
embracing the ranges and valleys of the 
White, Franconia, and Sandwich groups. 
From this plateau rise more than two hun- 
dred peaks, with an average elevation of 
4,000 feet. 

The principal summits of the White 
Mountain Group proper, are Mounts Madi- 
son, Jefferson, Adams, Clay, Washington, 
Monroe, Webster, Franklin, and Jackson, 



which are thickly clustered near the eastern 
boundary of the state. Of these, Mt. Wash- 
ington, 6,293 f ee t above the sea, is the 
highest peak north of North Carolina. 
Mts. Adams and Jefferson, the next highest 
peaks, are from four to five hundred feet 
lower. 

West of this White Mountain group, in 
the northern part of Grafton County and 
south of the Lower Ammonoosuc River, is 
the Franconia Group, of which Mts. Lafay- 
ette, Profile, Haystack and the Twin Moun- 
tains, are the principal peaks. Of these, 
Mount Lafayette, the highest, rises to an 
altitude of 5,259 feet. 

Near the southern boundary of the pla- 
teau is the Sandwich Group, the most im- 
posing of which is Whiteface ; and twenty 
miles beyond this, to the northeast, is the 
rough and scraggy pyramidal Kiarsarge, or 
Pequawket, 3,251 feet in height. Between 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



45 



Map of the White Mountains. 



Kiarsarge and Whiteface, and separated 
from the latter by a range of six prominent 
peaks, is Chocor'u-a — with a little lake 
reposing at its base — a wild, grand, and 
picturesque mountain, — 

The pioneer of a great company 

That wait behind him, gazing toward the east, — 

Mighty ones all, down to the nameless least, — 

Though after him none dares to press, where he 

With bent head listens to the minstrelsy 

Of far waves chanting to the moon, their priest. 

A shadowy, cloud cloaked wraith, with shoulders bowed, 

He steals, conspicuous, from the mountain-crowd. 

— Lucy Larcom. 



It has been said that Chocor'u-a is 
everything that a New Hampshire moun- 
tain should be, and that no mountain has 
interested our best artists more. Its form 
is massive and symmetrical, and with the 
exception of Mount Adams of the Mount 
Washington range, there is no other peak 
so sharp as Chocor'u-a. It bears the name 
of an Indian chief. It is invested with tra- 
ditional and poetical interest, and it is the 
only mountain peak that is crowned with a 
legend. 

Selecting from several traditions, Choc- 
or'u-a is described in one of them as an 



46 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Indian prophet and chief of the Sokokis 
tribe, — a warrior of dark, fierce, ungovern- 
able passions. Incited to revenge for a 
fancied injury, he destroyed the entire 
family of one of the early white settlers of 
that region, while the husband and father 
was absent from home. It was now the 
white man's turn to seek revenge. Learn- 
ing that Chocor'u-a had gone up, unat- 
tended, into the mountain that bears his 
name, the white man, rifle in hand, pursued 
him to the very pinnacle of the mountain. 
Aiming at the chief the deadly weapon, 
which was then a great terror to the Indians, 
he commanded him to throw himself into 
the abyss beneath. The warrior, seeing no 
way of escape, but undaunted, first invoked 
the Great Spirit to curse the white men, call- 
ing out in tones that reverberated through 
the mountain : " May the Great Spirit curse 
ye when he speaks in the clouds, and his 
words are fire. May lightning blast your 
crops ! Winds and fire destroy your dwel- 
lings ! The Evil Spirit breathe death upon 
your cattle ! Your graves lie in the war- 
path of the Indian ! Panthers howl and 
wolves fatten over your bones! — Chocor'u-a 
goes to the Great Spirit, — his curse stays 
with the white man ! " Then throwing 
himself headlong down the mountain-side, 
he fell, a mangled corpse upon the rocks, in 
plain view of his enemy. Tradition says 
that the warrior's curse long rested on the 
settlement of the white men in the valley 
below. 

South of this great central plateau, for a 
distance of 80 miles, the White Mountains 
have an elevation of about 1,500 feet, with 
several prominent summits. One of these 
is Mount Kearsarge, a noble granite peak 
nearly 2,500 feet high, in Merrimack 
County. This mountain gave its name to 
the United States war vessel that sunk the 
notorious " Alabama." 

Another summit is Grand Monadnock, 



3,186 feet high, containing distinct stratas 
of slate and mica, and covering an area at 
its base of five miles by three. It rises in 
solitary grandeur in Cheshire County, — 

And there, forever firm and clear, 

Its lofty turret upward springs ; 
It owns no rival summit near, 

No sovereign but the King of kings. 
Thousands of nations have passed by, 

Thousands of years unknown to story, 
And still its aged walls on high 

It rears, in melancholy glory. 

— W. B. O. Peabody. 

The prominent streams and their tribu- 
taries that traverse the White Mountain 
plateau, have cut deep furrows in its rocky 
formations ; and wonderful notches, cas- 
cades, ravines, and lakes are numerous. 
These streams furnish the following four 
grand avenues of approach to the heart of 
the mountains: 1st, From Gorham, in the 
valley of the Androscoggin, on the north- 
east ; 2d, from Littleton and Bethlehem in 
the valleys of the Connecticut and the 
Lower Ammonoosuc on the west ; 3d, from 
Plymouth on the south, up the valley of the 
Pemigewasset or Merrimack ; and 4th, from 
North Conway, on the southeast, up the 
valley of the Saco. Each of these towns is 
the centre of varied and rich landscapes, 
and each is a charming summer resort. 
North Conway, in particular, is noted for its 
delightful situation, and the " dreamy 
charm " of its mountain scenery. 

The scenery of the White Mountains is 
so grand and varied that it attracts visitors 
from all parts of the world ; and it has 
gained for this elevated region the title — 

" The Switzerland of America?' 

The great point of interest is that enor- 
mous mass, Mount Washington, the grand 
central figure of some sixteen miles, north 
and south, of dependent peaks of huge pro- 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



47 



portions. The summit is reached either by 
a carriage-road winding through galleries 
and on long curves, or by a railway having 
a heavy notched centre-rail, into which plays 
a centre cog-wheel of the locomotive. The 
ascent of three miles and over by rail is 
usually made in about ninety minutes. 

The ascent by the bridle-path, from the 
Saco valley by way of Mounts Clinton, 
Pleasant, Franklin, and Monroe, is consid- 
ered peculiarly attractive, as the route 
passes over several grand summits, from 
which open the most extensive and charm- 
ing views On the east side of Mt. Monroe 
the path descends to where nestles, on the 
verge of a great gulf, the little " Lake of 
the Clouds," the source of the lower Am- 
monoosuc. Several buildings, among them 
a U. S. Signal Service Station, stand on 
the summit of Mt. Washington, protected 
by sheltering rocks from the terrible winds 
that frequently sweep over the mountain at 
the rate of one hundred miles an hour. 
The heaviest recorded gale attained a 
velocity of ;86 miles an hour. 

The view from Mount Washington, on a 
clear day, is the most grand and extensive 
in New England, and the circle of vision 
extends about one hundred miles in every 
direction. And yet the view is generally 
considered to be inferior to that from other 
and lower summits, because the immense 
height renders near objects indistinct, and 
obscures the more distant ; while, as has 
been said by a recent writer, " any picture 
of the mountains that does not show the 
cloud-capped monarch himself, attended by 
his train of grand peaks, — the central, domi- 
nating, perfecting group — must be essen- 
tially incomplete." We quote further from 
this writer his impressions of 

The Victv from Mount Washington} 

" For some moments — moments not to 

1 " The Heart of the White Mountains;" by Saml. Adams 
Drake. 



be forgotten — we stood there silent. The 
scene was too tremendous to be grasped in 
an instant. A moment was needed for the 
unpracticed eye to adjust itself to the vast- 
ness of the landscape, and to the multitude 
of objects — strange objects — everywhere 
confronting it. My sensations were at first 
too vague for analysis, too tumultuous for 
expression. The flood choked itself. 

"All seemed chaos. On every side the 
great mountains fell away like mists of the 
morning, dispersing, receding, to an endless 
distance, diminishing, growing more and 
more vague, and finally vanishing on a 
limitless horizon neither earth nor sky. 
Never before had such a spectacle offered 
itself to my gaze. The first idea was of 
standing on the threshold of another planet, 
and of looking down upon this world of 
ours outspread beneath ; the second, of 
being face to face with eternity itself. No 
one ever felt exhilaration at first. The 
scene is too solemnizing. 

" But by degrees order came out of 
chaos. The bewildering throng of moun- 
tains arranged itself in chains, clusters, or 
families. Hills drew apart, valleys opened, 
streams twinkled in the sun, towns and 
villages clung to the skirts of the mountains 
or dotted the meadows ; but all was mys- 
terious, all as yet unreal. 

" Comprehending at last that all New 
England was under my feet, I began to 
search out certain landmarks. But this in- 
vestigation is fatiguing ; besides, it conducts 
to absolutely nothing. Pointing to a scrap 
of blue haze in the west, my companion 
observed, ' That is Mount Mansfield ;' and 
I, mechanically, repeated, 'Ah ! that is 
Mount Mansfield.' It was nothing. Dis- 
tance and Infinity have no more relation 
than Time and Eternity. It sufficed for 
me to be admitted near the person of the 
great autocrat of New England, while under 
skies so lair and radiant he gave audience 



48 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



to his splendid and imposing retinue of 
mountains. 

" I consider this first introduction to 
what the peak of Mt. Washington looks 
down upon, an epoch in any man's life. I 
saw the whole noble company of mountains 
from highest to lowest. I saw the deep 
depressions through which the Connecticut, 
the Saco, the Merrimack, and the Andros- 
coggin, wind toward the lowlands. I saw 
the lakes which nurse the infant tributaries 
of those streams. I saw the great northern 
forests, the notched wall of the Green Moun- 
tains, the wide expanse of level land, flat 
and heavy, like the ocean, and finally the 
ocean itself. And all this was mingled in 
one mighty scene. 

" The utmost that I can say of this view 
is that it is a marvel. You receive an im- 
pression of the illimitable such as no other 
natural spectacle — not even the sea — can 
give. Astonishment can go no farther. 
Nevertheless, the truth is you are on too 
high a view-point for the most effective 
grasp of mountain scenery. It is true that 
you see to a great distance, but you do not 
distinguish anything clearly. * * * 

" One word more : from this lofty height 
you lose the symmetrical relation of the 
lesser summits to the grand whole. Even 
these signal embodiments of heroic strength 
— the peaks of Jefferson, Adams, and Madi- 
son — even these suffer a partial eclipse , but 
the summits stretching to the southward 
are so dwarfed as to be divested of any 
character as typical mountain structures. 
The charm of the view — such at least is the 
writer's conviction — resides rather in the 
immediate surroundings than in the extent 
of the panorama, great as that unquestion- 
ably is." 

Among the noted waterfalls of these 
mountains are the "Artists Falls" in North 
Conway, with beautiful groupings of rock 
and woodland scenery ; " Glen Ellis Falls," 



the finest in the mountains, where the Ellis 
River plunges down in a thick, white mass; 
" Berlin Falls," six miles north of Gorham, 
on the Androscoggin River, which here 
pours down a powerful stream through a 
narrow granite pass, descending nearly 200 
feet within a mile ; " Ripley Falls," on a 
tributary of the Saco River, east of Mount 
Willey, falling 156 feet at an angle of forty- 
five degrees ; and the falls of the Ammon- 
oosuc, which descend over 5,000 feet in a 
course of thirty miles. 

Ihc Crawford Notch. 
Passing from North Conway up the valley 
of the Saco beyond Mount Crawford and 
the "Giant Stairs" — the latter, two enor- 
mous steps, respectively 350 and 450 feet in 
height — the traveler enters one of the five 
great passes of the mountains, the White 
Mountain or Crawford " Notch," where 

" the abrupt mountain breaks, 
And seems with its accumulated crags 
To overhang the world." 

This " Notch " lies between Mounts Webster 
and Willey, and is 1,914 feet in depth, and 
two miles long. In this immense but nar- 
row defile of dripping cascades and noisy 
mountain torrents, enclosed by a labyrinth 
of mountains, nearly every step unfolds new 
and enchanting views. At the upper end, 
called the Gate of the Notch, where the 
huge precipices of Mt. Willard close in upon 
it, the vast chasm is but 22 feet wide. In 
this immediate vicinity is a pretty lakelet, 
the source of the Saco, that struggles, a 
mere rivulet, through the rocky gorge to 
the plains below. Says the poet Whittier, — 

From the heart of Waumbek-Methna, 1 from the lake 

that never fails, 
Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's intervales ; 
There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters foam and 

flow, 
As when Darby Field 2 first saw them, two hundred years 

ago- 

1 Indian title, signifying " Mountains with snowy foreheads." 
- Darby Field was an Irish settler of Exeter, N. H., who, in 
1642, made the first known ascent of Mt. Washington. 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



49 



The Franc onia Notcli. 

On the western verge of the Franconia 
Group is found another celebrated "Notch" 
or mountain pass, through which flows the 
Pemigevvasset ; — 

'Tis the musical Pemigewasset, 

That sings, to the hemlock-trees, 
Of the pines on the Profile Mountain, 

Of the stony Face that sees, 
Far down in the vast rock-hollows, 

The waterfall of the Flume, 
The blithe cascade of the Basin, 

And the deep Pool's lonely gloom. 

— Lucy Larcom. 

This notch is about five miles in extent, 
less than half a mile wide, and its walls 
have an average height of 2,000 feet. 

" The narrow district thus enclosed," ob- 
serves Thomas Starr King, 1 " contains more 
objects of interest to the mass of travelers, 



Franconia Notch and Vicinity. 

than any other region of equal extent within 
the compass of the usual White Mountain 
tour. In the way of rock sculpture and 
waterfalls, it is a huge muse'um of curiosi- 



1 " The White Hills : their Legends, Landscape, and Poetry;" 
by Thos. Starr King. 

4 a 



ties. There is no other spot where the 
visitor is domesticated amid the most savage 
and startling forms in which cliffs and forest 
are combined. And yet there is beauty 
enough intermixed with the sublimity and 
wildness to make the scenery permanently 
attractive, as well as grand and exciting." 

Among the most noted freaks of nature 
near the southern outlet of the Franconia 
Notch are the " Basin," a granite bowl 6o 
feet in circumference and io feet deep, filled 
with clear water ; the " Pool," 1 50 feet 
across, with dark cold water 40 feet in 
depth ; and, above all, the " Flume," a 
remarkable rock-gallery driven about 700 
feet into the heart of the mountain, with 
precipitous walls from 60 to 70 feet high, 
through which an ice-cold brook rushes. 
At the upper end of this gorge, where the 
walls are but ten feet apart, they hold sus- 
pended a huge granite boulder. 

In passing up the Notch from the south, 
the crags, ridges, and black forests of Mount 
Lafayette, and the other great central peaks 
of the Franconia group, are revealed in 
all their gloomy magnificence. The ascent 
of Lafayette, though not so long, is even 
more laborious than that of Washington, 
and the view from its summit is grand. 
Says Thomas Starr King, — 

"It is the lowlands that are the glory of the 
spectacle which Lafayette shows his guests. 
The valleysof the Connecticut and Merrimack 
are spread west and southwest and south 
With what pomp of color are their growing 
harvests inlaid upon the floor of New Eng- 
land ! Here we see one of Nature's great 
water colors. She does not work in oil. 
Every tint of the flowers ; all the grada- 
tions of leaf-verdure ; every stain on the 
rocks ; every shadow that drifts along a 
mountain slope, in response to a floating 
cloud ; the vivid shreds of silver gossamer 
that loiter along the bosom of a ridge after 
a shower ; the luxurious chords of sunset 



5° 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



gorgeousness ; the sublime arches of di- 
sheveled light, — all are Nature's temptation 
and challenge to the intellect and cunning 
of the artist to mimic the splendor with 
which, by water and sunbeams, she adorns 
the world." 

On Mount Cannon, or Profile Mountain, 
opposite Lafayette, west of the Notch, and 
1,500 feet above the road, are three pro- 
jecting rocks, that, viewed from a particular 
point, assume a well defined profile of a 
colossal human face 80 feet long, with firmly 
drawn chin, lips slightly parted, and a well 
proportioned nose, surmounted by a mas- 
sive brow. Hence the mountain is called 
" Profile Mountain,'' and to this interesting 
intimation of a human countenance that 
suddenly disappears when the observer 
moves his position to one side, has been 
given the appropriate title — 

" The Old Man of the Mountain." 

A glory smites the craggy heights : 

And in a halo of the haze, 
Flushed with faint gold, far up, behold 

That mighty face, that stony gaze ! 
In the wild sky upborne so high 

Above us perishable creatures, 
Confronting Time with those sublime, 

Impassive, adamantine features. 



Thou beaked and bald high front, miscalled 

The profile of a human face ! 
No kin art thou, O Titan brow, 

To puny man's ephemeral race. 
The groaning earth to thee gave birth, — 

Throes and convulsions of the planet ; 
Lonely uprose, in grand repose, 

Those eighty feet of facial granite. 

We may not know how long ago 

That ancient countenance was young ; 
Thy sovereign brow was seamed as now 

When Moses wrote and Homer sung. 
Empires and states it antedates. 

And wars, and arts, and crime, and glory ; 
In that dim morn when man was born 

Thy head with centuries was hoary. 

Thou lonely one ! nor frost, nor sun, 

Nor tempest leaves on thee its trace ; 
The stormy years are but as tears 

That pass from thy unchanging face. 
With unconcern as grand and stern, 

Those features viewed, which now survey us, 
A green world rise from seas of ice, 

And order come from mud and chaos. 

Canst thou not tell what then befell ? 

What forces moved, or fast or slow ; 
How grew the hills ; what heats, what chills ; 

What strange, dim life, so long ago ? 
High-visaged peak, wilt thou not speak 

One word, for all our learned wrangle ? 
What earthquakes shaped, what glaciers scraped , 

That nose, and gave the chin its angle ? 

Our pygmy thought to thee is naught, 

Our petty questionings are vain ; 
In its great trance thy countenance 

Knows not compassion nor disdain, 
With far-off hum we go and come, 

The gay, the grave, the busy-idle ; 
And all things done, to thee are one, 

Alike the burial and the bridal. 



Profile View. 



silent speech, that well can teach 
The little worth of words or fame ! 

1 go my way, but thou wilt stay 

While future millions pass the same : — 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



5 1 



But what is this I seem to miss ? 

Those features fall into confusion ! 
A further pace — where was that face ? 

The veriest fugitive illusion ! 

O Titan, how dislimned art thou ! 

A withered cliff is all we see ; 
That giant nose, that grand repose, 

Have in a moment ceased to be ; 
Or still depend on lines that blend, 

On merging shapes, and sight, and distance, 

And in the mind alone can find 

Imaginary brief existence ! 

— yohn 7. Trowbridge. 

At the base of the mountain is the " Old 
Man's Washbowl," or Profile Lake, a beauti- 
ful sheet of water, the source of the Pemi- 
gewasset, a quarter of a mile long and an 
eighth wide. A little farther up, at the 
northern entrance to the Notch, is the Pro- 
file House, hidden away on a pleasant lawn 
in a deep and narrow glen, a grizzly preci- 
pice on one side and a shaggy mountain on 
the other. Opposite the hotel is a lofty 
crag named Eagle Cliff, an advanced spur 
of Mount Lafayette ; and half a mile away 
Echo Lake lies calm, deep, and transparent, 
encircled by beautiful scenery. Any sound 
awakens here the most remarkable echoes, — 
and Mr. King observes that " Franconia is 



more fortunate in its little lake that is rim- 
med by the undisturbed wilderness, and 
watched by the grizzled peak of Lafayette, 
than in the Great Stone Face from which it 
has gained so much celebrity." 1 

We have not the space to mention other 
objects of interest and importance in the 
White Mountain region, or even to enumer- 
ate its distinct zones of vegetation. It is a 
rich field of exploration for the tourist, the 
botanist, and the geologist. It was for a 
long time believed that these mountains 
bore no marks of the great Glacial Period ; 
but Professor Charles H Hitchcock, state 
geologist, says : , 

" Few parts of the country display better 
evidences of the existence of an ice age than 
New Hampshire. No extensive rock ex- 
posures can be found that do not exhibit 
marks of scarification. Even Mount Wash- 
ington has been furrowed or channelled, and 
boulders weighing 90 pounds occur here, 
which have been brought at least one dozen 
miles and left 3,000 feet higher than their 
source." 



1 The legend and the moral of the Great Stone Face are related 
by the novelist Hawthorne, in one of his admirable " Twice-told 
Tales." The author's vivid imagination, as another has well said, 
" endows the Titanic countenance with a soul, and surrounds the 
colossal brow with a halo of spiritual grandeur." 



II. RIVERS, LAKES, AND VALLEYS. 



It is estimated that about one-sixteenth 
part of New Hampshire is covered with 
water, embracing some 1,500 streams and 
many lakes and ponds. Of these streams 
the Connecticut River is the largest in New 
England. It is essentially a New Hamp- 
shire river, as it rises 1,600 feet above the 
sea in the northeast part of the State, where 

" the northern guardians stand, 
Rude rulers of the solitary land," 

and its western bank, at low water mark, 
forms the entire boundary between the State 
and Vermont. 



/. The Connecticut and its Valley. 

From its source among the mountain- 
pines, the Connecticut passes through two 
small lakes before striking the Vermont 
line, and takes a generally southwest course 
to the Massachusetts line, thence flows 
southerly through the latter State and Con- 
necticut into Long Island Sound. The 
river is over 400 miles long, and its width 
varies from 150 to over 1,000 feet; while 
the picturesque valley through which it 
flows has an average width of about 40 
miles. It is navigable for large vessels as 



5 2 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 

2. The Merrimack. 

Down from the centre of the Franconia 
range Mows tne winding and picturesque 



far as Hartford, in Connecticut, 50 miles 
from its mouth, and for small ones to the 
mouth of the Lower Ammonoosuc, 270 
miles from the Sound ; navigation to this 
point being secured by canals cut around 
several falls in the stream. 

The principal tributaries of the Connec- 
ticut from New Hampshire are Indian 
Stream and Perry Stream from the extreme 
north, the Upper and Lower Ammonoosuc, 
the Masco'ma, the Sugar and the Ashuelot, 
all abounding in improved water-powers. 
The principal towns of the valley are Lan- 
caster, Haverhill, Hanover the seat of Dart- 
mouth College, Lebanon, Claremont, New- 
port and Keene. At Lebanon, the Mas- 
co'ma, which is the outlet of several small 
lakes, has a fall of 400 feet in passing 
through the town. Tilden Female Semi- 
nary is located here. Claremont is a beau- 
tiful village on the Sugar River, and as the 
waterfall is more than 1 50 feet within a mile, 
the manufacturing industries are consider- 
able. Keene is the most important place in 
the valley of the Connecticut, and the sixth 
city in the State in population and wealth. 
It is handsomely situated on the Ashuelot, 
and is the centre of a large and rich agricul- 
tural district, while its manufactures are 
extensive. 

The valley of the Connecticut is famed 
for its fertility, and for its attractive scenery 
diversified by towering rocks, mountains, 
and sunny slopes and vales. 

Though broader streams our sister realms may boast, 

Herculean cities, and a prouder coast, • 

Yet from the bound where hoarse St. Lawrence roars, 

To where La Plata rocks resounding shores, 

From where the arms of slimy Nilus shine, 

To the blue waters of the rushing Rhine, 

Or where Ilissus glows like diamond spark, 

Or sacred Ganges whelms her votaries dark, 

No brighter skies the eye of day may see, 

Nor soil more verdant, nor a race more free. 

— Mrs. Sigourney. 



flows the winding 
Pemigewasset to the attractive little town 
of Plymouth, remarkable for the beauty of 
its meadows and the grace of its elm trees. 
Plymouth is much visited by tourists, and 
has a State normal school. In this town 
Daniel Webster made his first argument 
before a court ; and here Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne suddenly expired in the spring of 
1864,— 

" For while he slept his spirit walked abroad, 
And wandered past the mountain, past the cloud, 
Nor came again to rouse the form at peace." 

At this point the Pemigewasset is joined 
from the west by Baker's River, named 
from a Massachusetts colonel who destroyed 
here a large settlement of hostile Indians in 
the days before the Revolution. Below 
Bristol it is joined by Smith's River, also 
from the west; and, passing through widen- 
ing meadows, at Franklin, in Merrimack 
County, where there is excellent water- 
power, it unites " its cold tide with the 
warmer stream that flows from lake Winne- 
pesau'kee, and then takes the name of 
Merrimack." 

This river is the most important in the 
State, and drains about two-fifths of it. It 
flows south from Franklin seventy-five 
miles to Chelmsford in Massachusetts, 
through a charming valley of great fertility, 
that has the warmest climate in the State ; 
and its numerous falls furnish immense 
water-power, to which the cities of Con- 
cord, Manchester, Nashua, and many towns, 
owe their life and prosperity. From 
Chelmsford it flows northeast, and enters 
the Atlantic at Newburyport. Says Tho- 
reau, — 

"By the law of its birth the Merri- 
mack is never to become stagnant, for it 
has come out of the clouds, and down the 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



53 



sides of precipices worn in the floods, until 
it has found a breathing place in the low 
land. There is no danger that the sun will 
steal it back to heaven again before it reach 
the sea, for it has a warrant to recover its 
own dews into its bosom, with interest, at 
every eve." 

The chief tributaries of the Merrimack 
are the Suncook on the east, and the Con- 
toocook, the Piscataquog, the Souhegan, 
and the Nashua, on the west. The latter is 
a stream of much importance, some 80 
miles in length. It rises in central Massa- 
chusetts, and flows only a few miles in New 
Hampshire ; but it furnishes superior 
water-power in the latter State, and above 
Mine Falls, three miles from its mouth, it 
waters a valley of great beauty and fertility. 
A poet gives a pleasing summer picture of 
this river, in the following song : 

thou who journeyest through that Eden-clime, 
Winding thy devious way to cheat the time, 
Delightful Nashua ! beside thy stream, 

Fain would I paint thy beauties as they gleam. 

Far down the silent stream, where arching trees 
Bend their green boughs so gently to the breeze, 
One live, broad mass of molten crystal lies, 
Clasping the mirrored beauties of the skies ! 

Look, how the sunshine breaks upon the plains! 
So the deep blush their nattered glory stains. 
Romantic river ! on thy quiet breast, 
While flashed the salmon with his lightning crest, 

Not long ago the Indian's thin canoe 
Skimmed lightly as the shadow which it threw ; 
Not long ago, beside thy banks of green, 
The night-fire blazed and spread its dismal sheen. 

Thou peaceful valley ! when I think how fair 
Thy various beauty shines, beyond compare, 

1 cannot choose but own the Power that gave 
Amidst thy woes a helping hand to save, 
When o'er thy hills the savage war-whoop came, 
And desolation raised its funeral flame. 

— Rufus Dawes. 



On the Merrimack, at the Falls of Amos- 
keag, in the cavities of whose rocks, tradi- 
tion says, the Indians stored and concealed 
their corn, stands Manchester, the first city 
of the State in population and wealth. 
The Falls descend 54 feet within a mile, 
and the ample water-power is employed 
chiefly in cotton and woolen manufactures, 
in the annual production of which Man- 
chester is the fourth city in the United 
States. Its iron manufactures are also 
important. 

Nashua, the third city in the State, is 
eighteen miles below Manchester, at the 
junction of the Nashua river with the Mer- 
rimack ; and here, also, are extensive cotton, 
woolen, and iron manufactures. The iron 
works have the largest steam hammer in 
the United States. 

The Contoocook River enters the Merri- 
mack in the northern limits of Concord, 
the State capital, which is handsomely situ- 
ated, and is next to Manchester in popu- 
lation. At the union of the two streams is 
a small island of much historic interest. 
It is famous as the place where the heroic 
Mrs. Duston, of Haverhill, who had been 
taken prisoner by Indians, with the aid of a 
girl and a boy killed ten of her captors and 
escaped. A massive granite pedestal, on 
which is a statue of Mrs. Duston, with a 
tomahawk in one hand and a bunch of 
scalps in the other, was erected here in 
1874. 

Concord has extensive quarries of granite 
of superior quality, and among its numerous 
manufactures carriages and furniture are 
specially noted ; but the natural water- 
power, both above and below the business 
centre of the city, has been only partially 
utilized. The city occupies the ancient 
seat of the Penacooks, a powerful Indian 
tribe, whose name is preserved to the 
locality in Penacook Lake, which supplies 
Concord with pure water. A beautiful 



54 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Indian tradition of this section is related by 
Whittier, in " The Bridal of Pennacook," in 
which the poet gives the following charm- 
ing picture of 

The Merrimack, Centuries Ago. 

O child of that white-crested mountain whose springs 
Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's wings, 
Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters shine, 
Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the dark 
pine, — 

From that cloud-curtained cradle so cold and so lone, 
From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of stone, 
By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and free, 
Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the sea ! 

No bridge arched thy waters save that where the trees 
Stretched their long arms above thee and kissed in the 

breeze ; 
No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy shores, 
The plunging of otters, the light dip of oars. 

Green-tufted, oak-shaded, by Amoskeag's fall 
Thy twin Uncanoonucs 1 rose stately and tall, 
Thy Nashua meadows lay green and unshorn, 
And the hills of Pentucket were tasseled with corn. 

But thy Pennacook valley was fairer than these, 
And greener its grasses and taller its trees, 
Ere the sound of an axe in the forest had rung, 
Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had swung. 

In their sheltered repose looking out from the wood 
The bark-builded wigwams of Pennacook stood ; 
There glided the corn-dance, the council-fire shone, 
And against the red war-post the hatchet was thrown. 

O Stream of the Mountains ! if answer of thine 
Could rise from thy waters to question of mine, 
Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan 
Of sorrow would swell for the days which have gone. 

Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the wheel, 
The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel ; 
But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze, 
The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees ! 



1 Uncanoo'nucs, the Indian name of the two similar mountains 
at are on the west bank of the Merrimack River, near the Falls. 



j. The Sqaamscot and the Piscataqna. 

Besides the upper waters of the Andros- 
coggin and the Saco, the principal streams 
that drain the eastern slopes of New Hamp- 
shire are the Squamscot, the Piscata- 
qua, and their tributaries. The former 
river is also known as the Exeter, from the 
prosperous manufacturing village of that 
name which, shaded by beautiful elms, 
stands at the head of tide-water. It is the 
seat of Phillips Academy, one of the most 
noted preparatory schools in the country ; 
and of Robinson Female Seminary, with an 
endowment of $300,000. Just before enter- 
ing the Piscataqua the Squamscot enlarges 
into the tidal basin Great Bay, that covers 
an area of about nine square miles. 

The Piscataqua, a deep and wide river, 
is formed by the Salmon Falls and the 
Cocheco Rivers, with the former of which 
it constitutes a part of the eastern boundary 
of the State. Ample water-power is fur- 
nished for the cotton, woolen, and other 
industries of many important places, includ- 
ing Great Falls on the Salmon Falls River, 
and Farmington, Rochester, and Dover, on 
the Cocheco. Dover is the oldest place in the 
State, and the fourth city in population. It 
is favorably situated for commerce and 
manufactures, as vessels of considerable 
draught can ascend to the falls of the 
Cocheco, within the city limits, that supply 
the motive-power for immense cotton mills 
and other industries. 

Portsmouth. 

On a beautiful peninsula formed by the 
Piscataqua some three miles from its mouth, 
and on the south side of the river, is the 
quaint, cultured, and wealthy old city of 
Portsmouth, the commercial metropolis of 
the State, and its only seaport. The river 
is here more than half a mile wide, and fur- 
nishes one of the best harbors in New Eng- 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



55 



Portsmouth and Vicinity. 

land — capacious, deep, well protected, and 
free from sand-bars and ice owing to the 
height and force of the tides. 

On an island across the river from the 
city, but within the limits of Maine, is the 
U. S. Navy Yard, containing, among other 
things, three immense ship-houses, and a 
balance dry-dock 350 feet by 105, which 
cost $800,000. Portsmouth has consider- 
able foreign and coastwise trade, but its 
commercial importance is gradually declin- 
ing. Nevertheless, the city is steadily grow- 
ing in wealth. It has excellent schools 
and libraries, and its pleasant drives and 
fine beaches render it a favorite summer 
resort. Its chief manufactures are cotton 
fabrics, hosiery,' and boots and shoes. 

It has been asserted that " there are 
more quaint houses and interesting tradi- 
tions in Portsmouth than in any other town 
in New England." The city has, also, 
some interesting historical associations, and 
one event that occurred in December, 1774, 
is of special importance. It was the night- 
surprise and capture of Fort William and 
Mary, in the harbor, by a band of young 



patriots led by the intrepid John Sullivan, 
afterward a general in the Continental 
army. One hundred barrels of powder and 
fifteen cannon were secured without the 
firing of a single gun. This was the most 
dramatic incident immediately preceding 
the Revolution that has been recorded, and 
one that precipitated hostilities. 

Says a recent writer, — " Portsmouth has 
the stamp of a coin of one hundred years 
ago. The best houses are still the oldest, 
and rival the traditional splendors of the 
Colonial mansions of Boston in spacious- 
ness, richness of decoration, and a rare 
combination of simplicity and elegance." 
Among these relics of the past is the large 
and picturesque mansion of Gov. Benning 
Wentworth, at Little Harbor, in the out- 
skirts. It still retains many of its ancient 
features, some of which are mentioned in 
the following description of its condition 
one hundred years ago. 

It was a pleasant mansion, an abode 
Near, and yet hidden from, the great high-road, 
Sequestered among trees, a noble pile, 
Baronial and colonial in its style ; 
Gables and dormer-windows everywhere, 
And stacks of chimneys rising high in air, — 
Pandaean pipes, on which all winds that blew 
Made mournful music the whole winter through. 

Within, unwonted splendors met the eye, 
Panels, and floors of oak, and tapestry ; 
Carved chimney-pieces, where on brazen dogs 
Reveled and roared the Christmas fires of logs ; 
Doors opening into darkness unawares, 
Mysterious passages and flights of stairs; 
And on the walls, in heavy gilded frames, 
The ancestral Wentworths with Old-Scripture names. 
— Henry W. Longfellow. 

4.. The Lake Region. 

With the exception of Lake Umbagog 
on the northeast boundary, the important 
lakes of New Hampshire are scattered 



56 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



over the central and southern sections of its scene laid in this vicinity, where 
the State. The largest of these are New- 
found, Masco'ma, and Sun'apee, lying in or 
between the valleys of the Merrimack and 
the Connecticut, and the Ossipee, Squam, 
and Winnepesau'kee 1 , in close proximity, 
just south of the Sandwich mountain range. 
All these lakes are noted for their beauty ; 
and the three last named, which impart pe- 
culiar brightness and animation to the 
mountain scenery about them are said by 
tourists to rival, in "picturesqueness, the 
lakes in Tyrol and Switzerland. 



For weeks the clouds had raked the hills 

And vexed the vales with raining; 
And all the woods were sad with mist, 

And all the brooks complaining. 

But a sudden and severe night-storm 
swept over the mountains and through the 
valleys, and the rising sun lighted up a 
scene of surpassing loveliness, that the poet 
thus describes : 



The Lake Region. 

The waters of Squam Lake, about 8 
miles long by 4 wide, are of wonderful 
purity, and are dotted with romantic islets 
covered with luxuriant vegetation. Os- 
sipee Lake, in Carroll County, the source 
of the river of the same name, that flows 
into the Saco, is a sequestered sheet of 
water embracing a'bout ten square miles. 
Whittier's poem, "Among the Hills," has 



Through Sandwich Notch the west-wind sang 

Good-morrow to the cotter ; 
And once again Chocor'ua's horn 

Of shadow pierced the water. 

Above his broad lake, Ossipee, 1 

Once more the sunshine wearing, 
Stooped, tracing on that silver shield 

His grim armorial bearing. 

Clear drawn against the hard blue sky, 

The peaks had winter's keenness ; 
And, close on autumn's frost, the vales 

Had more than June's fresh greenness. 

You should have seen that long hill-range 

With gaps of brightness riven, — 
How through each pass and hollow streamed 

The purple lights of heaven; 

Rivers of gold-mist flowing down 

From far celestial fountains; 
The great sun flaming through the rifts 

Beyond the wall of mountains! 

Lake Winncpcsaukee. 

This, the largest and the finest of the 
New Hampshire lakes, is about 500 feet 
above the sea, in Carroll and Belknap 
Counties. The Indian name signifies either 
" The Smile of the Great Spirit," or 
" Pleasant Water in a High Place." As a 
prominent writer observes, " Whichever the 
word means, the lake itself signifies both. 
Topographically, it is pleasant water in a 



1 Also spelled Winnipiseogee, but pronounced win-ne-pe- 
saw'-kee. 



1 Ossipee Mountain, 2,800 feet high, lies a few miles northeast 
of Lake Winnepesaukee. 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



57 



high place, about thirty miles long, and 
varying from one to seven miles in breadth ; 
while to all who see in it an expression of 
the Divine art renewed every summer by 
the Creator, it is the smile of the Great 
Spirit." 

Winnepesaukee is navigable for steam- 
boats, and several attractive villages rest on 
or near its shores. The largest of these is 
Wolfborough, beautifully situated on a bay 
at the southern extremity. Laconia, on 
the Winnepesaukee River, is the largest 
place in this vicinity, and the centre of trade 
for a large circle of towns. At the northern 
end of the lake, on the shores of Moulton- 
borough Bay with its great archipelago of 
picturesque islands, the Ossipee Indians had 
their home ; and among the many relics of 
them that have been found, is a large 
monumental mound at the mouth of the 
little Melvin River, known as " The Grave 
by the Lake," where some great chief was 
probably buried. 

The Grave by the Lake. 

Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles 
Dimple round its hundred isles, 
And the mountain's granite ledge 
Cleaves the water like a wedge, 
Ringed about with smooth, gray stones, 
Rest the giant's mighty bones. 

Close beside, in shade and gleam, 
Laughs and ripples Melvin stream ; 
Melvin water, mountain-born, 
All fair flowers its banks adorn ; 
All the woodland's voices meet, 
Mingling with its murmurs sweet. 

Over lowlands forest-grown, 

Over waters island-strown, 

Over silver-sanded beach, 

Leaf locked bay and misty reach, 

Melvin stream and burial-heap, 

Watch and ward the mountains keep. 

Who that Titan cromlech fills ? 
Forest-Kaiser, lord o' the hills? 



Knight who on the birchen tree 
Carved his savage heraldry ? 
Priest o' the pine- wood temples dim, 
Prophet, sage, or wizard grim ? 
Now, whate'er he may have been, 
Low he lies as other men ; 
On his mound the partridge drums, 
There the noisy blue-jay comes ; 
Rank nor name nor pomp has he 
In the grave's democracy. 

Part thy blue lips, Northern lake ! 
Moss-grown rocks, your silence break ! 
Tell the tale, thou ancient tree ! 
Thou, too, slide-worn Ossipee ! 
Speak, and tell us how and when 
Lived and died this king of men ! 

Wordless moans the ancient pine ; 
Lake and mountain give no sign ; 
Vain to trace this ring of stones ; 
Vain the search of crumbling bones : 
Deepest of all mysteries, 
And the saddest, silence is. 

Nameless, noteless, clay with clay 

Mingles slowly day by day ; 

But somewhere, for good or ill, 

That dark soul is living still ; 

Somewhere yet that atom's force 

Moves the light-poised universe. 

—J. G. Whittier. 
It is difficult to describe the peculiar 
loveliness that invests Winnepesaukee. Its 
waters surround nearly three hundred 
islands that in summer-time are almost trop- 
ical in the luxuriance and richness of their 
vegetation ; bold mountains, and shores 
clothed in vivid green, are reflected on its 
glassy surface ; and, in moving over the 
lake, superb views are obtained of the Sand- 
wich range or of nearer mountain peaks, 
and even of Mount Washington, rising ma- 
jestically through the shadows forty miles 
away. It is the rare combination of the 
charms of land and water, and the great 
expanse of both, that give Winnepesaukee 
a peculiar and incomparable beauty. 



58 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



III. COAST LINE AND ISLANDS. 



The short sea-coast of New Hampshire 
is almost an unbroken line of sand, bor- 
dered by extensive marshes that stretch 
back 

" to the dark oak wood, whose leafy arms 
Screen from the stormy East the pleasant inland farms." 

This line of sand is interrupted only 
where some small creek or stream crosses 
the marshes to meet the ocean, or where 
an occasional headland thrusts itself out 
from the shore into the tossing billows of 
the sea. 

/. Hampton and Rye Beaches. 

With its famous beaches and the outly- 
ing Isles of Shoals, the New Hampshire 
coast offers attractions that have made it a 
city of summer homes from the Massachu- 
setts line to Portsmouth harbor. Hampton 
Beach, a noted resort, extends north from 
Hampton River, near the southern boun- 
dary, to barren Boar's Head, an interesting 
and singular promontory, 70 feet high, that 
juts far out into the ocean, and affords a 
fine view of the coast from Cape Ann in 
Massachusetts, to Mt. Agamenticus in 
Maine. Still farther north, extending up to 
Portsmouth, is the more fashionable Rye 
Beach, where the hard sand alternates with 
sharp and storm-worn rocks that echo the 
voices of the sea. 

On the lone rocks of Rye, 

When the day grows dimmer, 
And the stars from the sky 

Shed a tremulous glimmer, 
While the low winds croon, 

And the waves, as they glisten, 
Complain to the moon, 

I linger and listen. 

All the magical whole 

Of shadow and splendor 
Steals into my soul, 

Majestic yet tender ; 



And the desolate main, 

Like a sibyl intoning 
Her mystical strain, 

Keeps ceaselessly moaning. 

I hear it spell-bound, 

All its myriad voices, — 
Its wandering sound, 

And my spirit rejoices; 
For out of the deep 

And the distance it crieth, 

And, deep unto deep, 

My spirit replieth. 

— Thomas Durfee. 

The largest and best harbor on the 
coast, next to Portsmouth, is that formed 
by the small Hampton River, although its 
entrance is fringed with dangerous rocks 
and shoals, that may be seen at low tide, 

" When the ebb of the sea has left them free 
To dry their fringes of gold-green moss." 

A legend states that on these rocks was 
once lost a party of merry villagers, because 
Goody Cole, a notorious witch of Hampton 
and long the terror of the people, cast over 
them the spell of her ill-will as they sailed 
down the river and out on the summer sea 
for a day of pleasure. It was near the 
mouth of Hampton River that the poet 
Whittier pitched his " Tent on the Beach ;" 
and in that interesting collection of legend- 
ary stories he tells the tale of Goody Cole 
and the lost villagers, as follows : 

The Wreck of Rivcrmoiith. 

Once, in the old Colonial days, 

Two hundred years ago and more, 
A boat sailed down through the winding ways 

Of Hampton River to that low shore, 
Full of a goodly company 
Sailing out on the summer sea, 
Veering to catch the land-breeze light, 
With the Boar to left and the Rocks to right. 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



59 



" Fie on the witch !" cried a merry girl, 

As they rounded the point where Goody Cole 
Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl, 
A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul. 
" Oho !" she muttered, " ye're brave to-day I 
But I hear the little waves laugh and say, 
' The broth will be cold that waits at home ; 
For it's one to go and another to come !' " 

" She's cursed," said the skipper ; " speak her fair : 

I'm scary always to see her shake 
Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, 

And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake." 
But merrily still, with laugh and shout, 
From Hampton River the boat sailed out, 
Till the huts and the flakes on Star 1 seemed nigh, 
And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye. 

They dropped their lines in the lazy tide, 

Drawing up haddock and mottled cod : 
They saw not the Shadow that walked beside, 

They heard not the feet with silence shod. 
But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew, 
Shot by the lightnings through and through ; 
And muffled growls like the growls of a beast, 
Ran along the sky from west to east. 
-* * # * * * * 

The skipper hauled at the heavy sail : 

" God be our help ! " he only cried, 
As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail, 

Smote the boat on its starboard side. 
The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone 
Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown, 
Wild rocks lit up by the lightnings glare, 
The strife and torment of sea and air. 

Goody Cole looked out from her door : 

The Isles of Shoals were drowned and gone, 
Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar 

Toss the foam from tusks of stone. 
She clasped her hands with a grip of pain, 
The tear on her cheek was not of rain : 
" They are lost," she muttered, " boat and crew ! 
Lord, forgive me ! my words were true! " 

Suddenly seaward swept the squall ; 

The low sun smote through cloudy rack ; 
The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all 

The trend of the coast lay hard and black. 



But far and wide as eye could reach, 
No life was seen upon wave or beach ; 
The boat that went out at morning never 
Sailed back again into Hampton River. 

2. The Isles of Shoals. 

Nine miles off the coast, the Isles of 
Shoals, a group of some eight rocky islets, 
rise out of " the gray line of old ocean like 
mountain peaks above a cloud " The largest 
of these islands are Appledore, Star, and 



1 One of the Isles of Shoals. 



The Isles of Shoals. 

Haley ; the first embracing about four hun- 
dred acres. Four of the eight islands, in- 
cluding Appledore, belong to Maine, and 
the remaining four form a part of Rocking- 
ham County, New Hampshire. On White 
Island, the westernmost, is a revolving light 
87 feet above the sea, that is visible at a 
distance of fifteen miles. Rugged, solitary, 
and as barren as if Nature had disinherited 
them, these imperishable rocks have a 
desolate appearance that can scarcely be 
imagined. 

Mrs. Celia Thaxter, who has passed most 
of her life, since her fifth year, on these 
islands, having her home with the keeper 
of the lighthouse, has described their 
charms and mysteries in calm and storm, 
and through the changing seasons, in a 



6o 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



volume entitled Among the Isles of Shoals. 
She says : 

" Swept by every wind that blows, and 
beaten by the bitter brine for unknown 
ages, well may the Isles of Shoals be 
barren, bleak, and bare. At first sight 
nothing can be more rough and inhos- 
pitable than they appear. The incessant 
influences of wind and sun, rain, snow, 
frost, and spray, have so bleached the tops 
of the rocks, that they look hoary as if with 
age, though in the summer-time a gracious 
greenness of vegetation breaks here and 
there the stern outlines, and softens some- 
what their rugged aspect." 

Mrs. Thaxter finds occasion to picture 
considerable beauty, both in the very deso- 
lation which these Isles reveal, and in the 
ever changing shadows and colors of rock, 
and shore, and sea and sky, flecked here 
and there by the wings of lazy sea-gulls, 
and enlivened by the passing sails. 

The largest of these islands is well 
described by the poet Lowell in his — 
Pictures from Appledore. 

A heap of bare and splintery crags 

Tumbled about by lightning and frost, 

With rifts and chasms and storm-bleached jags, 

That wait and growl for a ship to be lost ; 

No island, but rather the skeleton 

Of a wrecked and vengeance-smitten one. 

***** * 

Ribs of rock that seaward jut, 

Granite shoulders and boulders and snags, 

Round which, though the winds in heaven be shut, 

The nightmared ocean murmurs and yearns, 

Welters, and swas'ies, and tosses, and turns, 

And the dreiry black seaweel lolls and wags; 

Only rock from shore to shore, 

Only a moan through the bleak clefts blown, 

With sobs in the rifts where the coarse kelp shifts, 

Falling and lifting, tossing and drifting, 

And under all a deep, dull roar, 

Dying and swelling, forevermore, — 

Rock and moan and roar alone, 

And the dread of some nameless thing unknown, — 

These make Appledore. 



Although isolated, dreary, and unblessed 
by cultivation or thrift, the Isles of Shoals 
fascinate by their grandeur and solitude, 
and have become a favorite summer retreat. 
They are also rich in the history and 
romance of pirates, fishermen, and the law- 
less rovers that once infested the Eastern 
coast, and of strong ships dashed to pieces 
on the rocks in the winter's storms. 

The pirate Captains Kidd and Teach — or 
Blackbeard, as the latter was called — are 
supposed to have buried immense treasure 
here ; and it is related that Blackbeard's 
beautiful wife, to whom he had entrusted 
the care of his treasure before making his 
last fight with an English cruiser, and who 
had taken an oath to guard it until his 
return, has been frequently seen on White 
Island, wrapped in a long sea-cloak," stand- 
ing on the verge of a low projecting point, 
gazing fixedly out upon the ocean in an 
attitude of intense expectation." 

The solitary lighthouse of these islands, 
that flashes out its warning over the sea, 
stands a monument, as well, to the many 
wrecks that are known to have occurred 
here before it was built. Among these, 
one of special interest has passed into song 
and story. One night in January, 1813, in 
the height of a severe gale and blinding 
snow-storm, an unknown Spanish or Portu- 
guese vessel, built of cedar and mahogany 
and richly laden, was driven on to Haley's 
Island, and every life on board was lost. 
Fourteen rude graves, marked by rough 
boulders without inscription, enclose as 
many bodies, that were recovered from the 
unknown wreck. 

Fifty long years ago these sailors died ; 

None know how many sleep beneath the waves ; 

Fourteen gray headstones, rising side by side, 
Point out their nameless graves, — 

Lonely, unknown, deserted, but for me, 

And the wild birds that flit with mournful cry, 

And sadder winds, and voices of the sea 

That mourns perpetually. — Celia Thaxter. 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



61 



IV. INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



The leading industries and resources of 
New Hampshire differ but little in character 
from those of Maine, with the exception 
that New Hampshire has little or no ship- 
building. Both have, essentially, the same 
varieties of soil, climate, and natural pro- 
ducts of land and water, and the same adapta- 
tion of water-power to manufactures ; but 
while Maine has a . coast line of nearly 
2,500 miles, with abundant harbors, and 
many long and navigable rivers entering 
them, New Hampshire has only eighteen 
miles of coast, and only one good harbor. 
Hence, while the maritime commerce of 
the one State is very extensive, that of the 
other is of little importance. Maine has 
fourteen United States customs districts; 
New Hampshire only one ; and while 
nearly 2,000 vessels from foreign ports 
enter Maine during the year, less than a 
hundred enter the single port in New 
Hampshire. 

In making these comparisons it should 
not be forgotten that Maine covers a terri- 
tory more than three times the extent of 
New Hampshire; and it will be seen, in the 
case of the latter State, that what is want- 
ing in one industry is made up in another. 
Although the number of manufacturing 
establishments of all kinds in Maine, and 
the capital employed, are greater than in 
New Hampshire, yet the latter is in advance 
of Maine in the value of the cotton goods 
it produces, and is exceeded in this branch 
of industry by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 
and Pennsylvania only. It is in advance of 
Maine in woolen industries also. 

In New Hampshire, as in Maine, the pro- 
duction of hay, potatoes, butter, wool, 
wheat, oats, Indian corn, and maple sugar, 
are the leading farm industries, but some of 



them are of little extent in the northern 
sections. The large county of Grafton pro- 
duces one-third of the 200,000 bushels of 
wheat raised in the state, one-quarter of the 
five million bushels of potatoes, and one- 
sixth of the 700,000 tons of hay ; but 
neither New Hampshire nor any other 
New England state raises sufficient wheat 
for home consumption. 

Says Professor Hitchcock, — "There are 
forty extensive granite quarries 1 in the state 
of New Hampshire. The stone is very fine 
grained, of a light gray color, and is used 
largely for obelisks in cemeteries." These 
quarries are found at Concord, Plymouth, 
Hookset, Manchester, and several other 
places. Mica 2 is found at Alstead, Grafton, 
and Acvvorth, in the granite ledges,- some- 
times in plates a yard across, and perfectly 
transparent. Soapstone 3 is found in large 
quantities at Francestown, and in Pelham, 
Keene, and Orford. 

With these exceptions, the mining in- 
dustries of the state are not important, 
although iron of superior quality is mined 
in the townships of Franconia and Bartlett, 
and gold in moderately paying quantities is 
obtained from the quartz rock of Lisbon, on 
the eastern bank of the Lower Ammon- 
oosuc. 

1 Granite quarries, see page 30. 

2 Mica, one of the constituents ofgranite, composed principally 
of silica, alumina, potash, and iron, is a mineral generally found in 
soft, smooth, tough, elastic, thin/a»iitue or layers, of various colors 
and degrees of transparency, As it stands heat, it is used, in 
place of glass, for the doors of stoves, lanterns, etc., and in place 
of window glass on board vessels of war. 

3 Soapstone or steatite, a variety of talc, composed chiefly of 
silica and magnesia, of a white, greenish white, or light green 
color, is sawn into slabs and extensively used as tire stones in 
furnaces and fire places : when ground it is used for diminishing 
friction; and it is employed in the manufacture of some kinds of 
porcelain. 



MAP 

O F 

NEW YORK. 



NEW YORK. 
QUESTIONS ON THE MAP. 



113 



I. General View. [p. 114.] — What 
country north of New York ? What states 
border it on the east ? On the south and 
west ? What large lake on the eastern 
border ? What one connected with it ? 
Two larger lakes on the north and west ? 
What large river on the northern border ? 
On the western border? In the eastern 
part of the state ? What large city at its 
mouth P 1 On what island is it ? x Where 
is Long Island ? Staten Island P 1 What is 
the principal western branch of the Hudson 
River ? The capitol of the State ? 

II. Mountain System, [p. ii5].-Where 
are the Palisades ? 2 What mountains next 
north of them ? 2 Principal peaks of the 
Highlands ? 2 What chain next north of 
them? 2 What group opposite Hudson? 2 
West of Lake Champlain ? 3 Its principal 
peaks? 3 Lakes? 3 Rivers flowing into the 
St. Lawrence ? 3 Into Lake Champlain ? 3 
To the Mohawk and Hudson ? Into Lake 
Ontario ? 

III. Rivers and Valleys, and their 
Towns and Cities, [p. 121.] — Where does 
the Hudson River rise ? 3 Its general course ? 
Into what bay does it empty P 1 Where does 
the Mohawk enter the Hudson ? 2 Principal 
tributaries of the Hudson on the east ? 2 
From the west ? 2 

[p. 122.] — Between what rivers is New 
York City situated P 1 What three principal 
islands east of it in the "East River?" 1 
Into what sound does this channel lead ? 
Where are the " Narrows ? " 1 

[p. 125]. — Where is Brooklyn? 1 Gover- 
nor's Island ? x Bedloe's Island P 1 Cony 
Island ? Where is Yonkers ? 2 Tarrytown ? 2 
Peekskill ? 2 West Point ? 2 Newburgh ? 2 
Poughkeepsie ? 2 Albany ? 2 Troy ? 2 Co- 
hoes ? 2 

[p. 130.] — What village at the head of 



Lake George ? On its outlet ? 3 Where is 
Whitehall? 

[p. 131.] — What is the general course 
of the Mohawk River? Where is Little 
Falls ? What are the principal tributaries 
of the Mohawk ? Where is Trenton Falls ? 
Schenectady ? Rome ? Utica ? 

[p. 132.] — Into what does the Black 
River empty ? Where is Sackett's Harbor ? 
Watertown ? Ogdensburg ? W r here are 
the Thousand Islands ? 

[P- T 33-] — Where is Oneida Lake? 4 
What town at the mouth of Oswego River? 4 
What ten lakes have their outlet in this 
river ? 4 On what outlet is Waterloo ? 4 
Seneca Falls ? 4 Auburn? 4 Canandaigua? 4 
Near the head of what lake is Syracuse ? 4 
Where is Ithaca ? 4 Geneva ? 4 Watkins 
Glen ? 4 

[p. 135.] — What five lakes have their 
outlet in Genesee River ? 4 What city near 
the mouth of the river ? 4 Where is War- 
saw? 4 Mount Morris ? 4 Geneseo? 4 

[p 136.] Into what do Cattaraugus and 
Cayuga Creeks empty ? Tonawanda Creek ? 
Where is Batavia ? Buffalo ? Niagara 
Falls ? 

[p. 138.] — Where is Olean ? Chautau- 
qua Lake ? Fredonia ? Jamestown ? What 
three rivers unite near Corning to form the 
Chemung? Into what does the Chemung 
flow ? Where is Elmira ? What two lakes 
are the source of the Susquehanna River? 
Two chief tributaries of this river from the 
north ? Where are Oswego and Bingham- 
ton? Where is Cooperstown ? 

[p. 140.] — What two streams unite to 
form the Delaware River ? In what direction 
does the Delaware run from Port Jervis? 
What bars its further passage in that direc- 
tion ? 



1 See, also, Map p. 122. 

2 See, also, Map p. 128. 



:i See, also, Map p. 11S. 
4 See, also, Map p. 134. 



ii 4 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



CHAPTER VII. — NEW YORK. 

"' Tis a good land to fall in with, men/ and a pleasant land to see." — Henry Hudson. 

I. GENERAL VIEW. 



The " Empire State," as New York is 
called because it is the richest and most 
populous state in the Union, extends from 
the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Erie ; and its 
extreme length, including Long Island, is 
435 miles. From the Canada boundary to 
the south point of Staten Island, its width is 
312 miles; through the centre of the state 
from the St. Lawrence River to the Penn- 
sylvania border, it measures about 150 
miles ; but from the mouth of Genesee 
River to the Pennsylvania border, only 88 
miles. Its outline, therefore, is quite irre- 
gular, and its greatly diversified surface is 
divided into three distinct physical sections 
by the valleys of the Mohawk and the Hud- 
son, that meet nearly at right angles near 
the centre of the eastern boundary. 

1. The Eastern Section. 

The smallest of these sections, and per- 
haps the most important, lies south of Lake 
Champlain and east of the Hudson River, 
and is characterized by high hills and broad 
fertile valleys, with numerous lakes and 
small streams. It comprises eleven coun- 
ties, seven of which, including New York, 
have a population that is exceeded only by 
the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illi- 
nois, respectively. 

This section includes the principal islands 
belonging to the State — Manhattan, Long, 
and Staten. The first is thirteen and a-half 
miles long, and varies in width from a few 
hundred yards to nearly three miles. This 
island was originally rough and rocky, 
except in parts of the south end, where 
marshes, ponds, and sand beds were fre- 
quent. The "Collect Pond," nearly two 



miles in circumference, covered the present 
site of the Tombs prison, in New York 
City, and was connected with the Hudson 
by a rivulet along what is now Canal Street. 
Long Island, 115 miles long and 14 
miles in average width, is mostly a level 
plain, broken by high hills in the northern 
portion. It is generally fertile, and in a 
state of high cultivation. The coast is 
deeply indented with numerous bays and 
inlets ; and off the eastern part of the 
island are Shelter, Gardiner's, Fisher's, and 
Plum Islands. Staten Island lies close to 
the New Jersey shore, and is 13 miles long 
by about 8 miles broad. 

2. The Northern Section. 
Another section of the state, comprising 

nearly one-third of its area but only one- 
eighth of its population, is the generally 
mountainous tract that lies between the 
Mohawk, the St. Lawrence, and Lake Cham- 
plain. The mountain plateau which occu- 
pies the greater portion of this section has 
been described as " that comparatively im- 
mense and beautifully circumscribed nu- 
cleus, which, from a height of nearly 6,ooo 
feet, descends with great irregularity, and 
disappears under the transition rocks which 
encircle it." 

3. The Western Section. 

The last of the three divisions is the 
largest, most varied, and most attractive. It 
embraces all the territory of the state west 
of the Hudson, and south of the Mohawk 
and the Great Lakes. The greater part of 
this section is a broad plateau, with steep, 
forest-clad hills forming its southern boun- 
dary. That portion of it whose waters flow 



NEW YORK. 



"5 



northerly into Lake Ontario, descends^ in a 
series of rolling and fertile terraces. This 
" Terrace Region," as it is called, is marked 
by a series of long and deep transverse 
valleys gemmed with beautiful small lakes. 
South of the water-shed the plateau consists 
of an irregular succession of ridges and 
valleys, drained by the Delaware, the Sus- 
quehanna, the Alleghany, and their branches- 
It will be readily seen that New York 
occupies a position of great geographical 
interest, and one of almost unlimited com- 
mercial advantages. Some of the waters 
that drain her territory flow north through 
the great outlet of the St. Lawrence ; others, 
south through the Hudson, the Delaware, 
and the Susquehanna, into the Atlantic 
Ocean ; while others, still, absorbed by the 
Alleghany, that empties into the Ohio, flow 
past the great cities of the west and south 
into the Gulf of Mexico. 



In the language of a distinguished states- 
man of New York, 1 

"Our state enjoys the apparently incon- 
sistent advantages of having the deepest 
channels of commerce with the west, and 
at the same time of being at the head 
of the great valleys of the United States. 
This position enables us to penetrate, 
with our canals and railroads, into all 
parts of the country, by following the easy 
and natural routes of rivers. We can go 
into twenty states and into two-thirds of the 
territories of the Union, without leaving the 
courses of valleys. No other Atlantic state 
can make a communication between its 
eastern and western borders without over- 
coming one or more mountain ridges." 

1 The late Ex-Gov. Horatio Seymour. 



II. THE MOUNTAIN SYSTEM. 



/. The Palisades, the Highlands, etc. 

With the exception of the spurs of the 
Alleghany Mountains that enter the south- 
western counties — -attaining in some places 
an altitude of from 2,000 to 2,500 feet — the 
mountain system of New York is confined 
almost wholly to the eastern portion of the 
state. In the southeast corner, on the west 
bank of the Hudson, the picturesque Pali- 
sades — a wall of trap rock — rise perpendicu- 
larly from the water's edge to a height of 
from 300 to 500 feet, and extend from 
Weehawken on the New Jersey shore, up 
into Rockland County, a distance of eighteen 
miles. The name " Palisades " was prob- 
ably given to these curious cliffs on account 
of their ribbed appearance, which resembles, 
from a distance, rude basaltic columns, or 
huge trunks of old trees, placed close 
together in an upright position for a barri- 
cade or defense. They afford fine views of 
5 a 



the great metropolis, and of the towns and 
country-seats that line the eastern shore, — 

" Tall spire, and glittering roof, and battlement, 
And banners floating in the sunny air ; 
And white sails o'er the calm blue waters bent, 
Green isle, and circling shore, are blended there." 

North of the Palisades are the rugged 
Highland chains, running northeastward 
into the Taconic hills of Connecticut and 
Massachusetts. Their highest points vary 
from 1,100 to 1,700 feet. One mile above 
Peekskill, on the east bank, "Anthony's 
Nose," 1,128 feet high, rises abruptly from 
the river, a complete mass of rock partly 
covered with stunted trees ; and on the op- 
posite shore is the " Dunderberg," from 
whose summit the city of New York may 
be seen on a clear day. Immediately across 
from Cold Spring stands old " Crow Nest," 
on the western bank, the scene of Rodman 
Drake's poem of exquisite fancy, The Culprit 



n6 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Fay, which gives poetical life to the tiny- 
insect creatures that are supposed to dwell 
in that wild region. It opens with a beauti- 
ful description of the mountain, when 

" Nought is seen in the vault on high 
But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky, 
And the flood which rolls its milky hue, 
A river of light on the welkin blue ; " — 

and it closes with a general jubilee of the 
Fays, that continues until 

" The hill-tops gleam in morning's spring, 
The skylark shakes his dappled wing, 
The day-glimpse glimmers on the lawn, 
The cock has crowed, and the Fays are gone." 

Above Cold Spring are " Bull Hill," 
1,586 feet high; "Breakneck Hill," 1,187 
feet, on whose extremity the imaginative 
eye so often pictures the profile of a human 
face ; and, near Fishkill Landing, " Beacon 
Hill," which derives its name from the 
signal fires frequently burned on its summit 
during the Revolution. " Butler Hill," or 
"Storm King," on the west shore, 1,529 
feet high, closes the list of the wild and 
lofty Highland hills, whose natural beauty 
and grandeur have made the locality world- 
renowned. 

No storied castles overawe these heights, 
Nor antique arches check the current's play, 

Nor moldering architrave the mind invites 
To dream of deities long passed away ; — 

But cliffs, unaltered from their primal form 
Since the subsiding of the deluge, rise 

And hold their savins 1 to the upper storm, 
While far below the skiff securely plies. 

— Thos. W. Jrarsons. 

Still farther to the north and west the 
Shawan'gunk (Shong'gum) Mountains, that 
are a continuation of the Blue or Kittatinny 
Mountains of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, 
extend northeasterly through Orange, Sulli- 
van, and UlsterCounties, and terminate in the 

1 Sav'in, a bushy evergreen shrub, of the juniper species. 



valley of the Esopus Creek, near Kingston. 
Along their entire western base runs the 
Delaware and Hudson Canal, that has its 
northern terminus at Eddyville ; and their 
eastern base is skirted by the Shawangunk 
and Wallkill Rivers. On the west are 
the fertile valleys of the Neversink and the 
Rondout, lying in the shadows of the lofty 
hills, and on the east are the famed grazing 
lands of Orange and Ulster Counties. 

2. The Catskills. 

About eight miles back from the Hud- 
son, in Greene County, the Catskill range 
lifts its cloud-capped summits to an altitude 
of about 3,800 feet. While these moun- 
tains are a continuation of the Alleghanies, 
and have the same general geological fea- 
tures, — showing along their eastern base 
the" old red sandstone " formation, — higher 
up, the precipitous slopes of gray sandstone 
of a harder texture, — and on their summits 
a conglomerate of stones and pebbles, firmly 
cemented into immense masses of rock, — 
they differ from the Alleghanies in the 
Alpine character of their highest peaks. 

The white quartz pebbles which cap 
these peaks are a conspicuous feature of 
the mountain landscape. As the upper- 
most of the rocky strata composing these 
mountains are of the same character as the 
rocks which underlie the coals of Pennsyl- 
vania, and as seams of coal a few inches 
thick are found here among their massive 
blocks, it is evident that before the Cats- 
kills were upheaved from the bowels of the 
earth, a coal formation covered what are 
now their lofty summits. 

The Catskills are drained by the Scho- 
harie River on the west, and by Catskill 
Creek on the east. On the west they 
decline gradually into high table-lands, with 
forests of hemlock, birch, and wild cherry ; 
but their eastern slopes are characterized 
by broad and rocky summits and steep 



NEW YORK. 



117 



declivities, interspersed with a forest growth 
of black and white oak, hickory, chestnut, 
hard maple, and other ordinary woods. 

These mountains are chiefly remarkable 
for their varied and beautiful scenery. Of 
limited area, they have been thoroughly 
explored, and the cascades of mountain 
streams, deep gorges or " cloves " bordered 
by almost perpendicular rocks, and wild 
haunts that are suggestive of the strange 
dwarfish creatures that " Rip van Winkle " 
saw playing nine-pins in mysterious silence, 
are among the multitude of picturesque 
scenes that have been revealed. 

The cascades are a most striking feature. 
Chief of these are the Catterskill or Kaater- 
skill Falls, formed in the early part of the 
course of the Catterskill Creek, which rises 
in two picturesque lakes near Round Top 
summit. These are two separate falls of 
180 and 80 feet respectively, forming, with 
the rapids immediately below, an aggregate 
descent of 300 feet. Hear what a favorite 
American poet says of them : — 

Midst green and shades the Catterskill leaps, 
From cliffs where the wood-flower clings ; 

All summer he moistens his verdant steeps 

With the sweet light spray of the mountain springs ; 

And he shakes the woods on the mountain side, 

When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide. 

This is a charming summer picture ; but 
it is in the winter season, as described by 
the same poet, that the upper falls should 
be seen, for then they present a spectacle 
as unique as it is grand. 

But when in the forest bare and old, 

The blast of December calls, 
He builds, in the starlight clear and cold, 

A palace of ice where his torrent falls, 
With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair, 
And pillars blue as the summer air. 

— Bryant. 

The Catskills are noted places of summer 



resort. Railways now pierce them, and 
excellent hotels and pretty cottages are 
planted on heights and slopes that com- 
mand charming mountain and lowland 
prospects. From the " Overlook," the 
" Grand," the " Kaaterskill," and other 
hotels, and from the terrace of Pine Orchard 
Mountain, where stands the old and familiar 
" Mountain House," the views are magnifi- 
cent. From the higher elevations a vast 
landscape lies before the beholder, stretch- 
ing as far as the eye can take in the picture. 
It is a map of earth, so to speak, with its 
fields, its forests, and its villages and cities 
scattered in the distance ; its streams and 
lakes diminished, like the dwellings of man. 
into insignificance. This prospect led an- 
other well-known American poet, and 
traveller, to exclaim, — 

How reel the wildered senses at the sight ! 
How vast the boundless vision breaks in view ! 
Nor thought, nor word, can well depict the scene ; 
The din of toil comes faintly swelling up 
From green hills far below; and all around 
The forest sea sends up its ceaseless roar 
Like to the ocean's everlasting chime. 
Mountains on mountains in the distance rise, 
Like clouds along the far horizon's verge ; 
Their misty summits mingling with the sky. 
Till earth and heaven seem blended into one. 

— Bayard Taylor. 

An extension of the base of the Cats- 
kills constitutes what is known as the Hel- 
derberg Hills, a limestone formation that 
continues with considerable distinctness 
westward to the Niagara River. 

,\ The Adirondacks. 

The most rugged mountains in the 
state, and the highest of the northern 
Appalachian spurs, except Mount Wash- 
ington in New Hampshire, are the Adiron- 
dacks, composed of granite and other pri- 
mary rocks. Their first outcroppings are 



n8 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Map. The Adirondack Region. 



seen at Little Falls and at other points in 
the Mohawk Valley. They extend in three 
parallel ranges, with interlocking spurs, 
through several counties to the north- 
eastern corner of the state, and the ele- 
vated plateau from which they rise is 
nearly 100 by 150 miles in extent, and 
2,000 feet above the sea. 

Among the highest peaks of the moun- 
tains may be mentioned Mount Marcy, 
5,402 feet high, whose Indian name, Ta- 
h'd'wuSy means, " I cleave the clouds," — 
Mount Mclntyre and Mt. Haystack, 5,- 
201, and 5,006 feet respectively — -"The 
three royal summits of the state;" also 
Mt. Dix, 4,916 feet; Mt. Seward, 4,- 
384 feet ; and Mt. Sandanona, 4,644 feet ; 
while Gothic and Basin Mountains are nearly 
5,000 feet high. 



The Adirondacks are rich in iron ores ; 
they abound in forests of hemlock, spruce, 
pine and cedar, which are succeeded, in the 
clearings, by the birch, beech, and maple ; 
while almost impenetrable swamps of tama- 
rack, cedar, and hemlock, are found in the 
lowlands. The forests have an undoubted 
beneficial climatic effect, and also shield 
the sources of the Hudson River and other 
important waterways from evaporation. 

The drainage of this mountainous region 
is toward the St. Lawrence River on the 
northwest, Lake Champlain on the north- 
east and east, and the Hudson River on 
the south. The many streams flowing in 
these different directions connect with one 
another, or interlock with numerous lakes 
that lie either in the broader valleys be- 
tween the ranges, or where the mountains 



NEW YORK. 



119 



crowd so closely on the shores that only 
narrow, deep intervales are found between 
the water and the mountain steeps. Most 
of the lakes and streams are well stocked 
with trout and other fish. 

To the west and southwest of the great 
peaks lies a chain of lakes, including Ra- 
quette, Long, and Tupper Lakes, whose 
outlet is the Raquette River, that winds 
along through ever varying scenes of vale 
and woodland for 140 miles, and empties 
into the St. Lavyrence. 

The following sketch from " Down the 
Raquette " may serve to picture more 
vividly the scenes that even now meet the 
eye of the tourist in this wild and romantic 
region. 

Mark the crane wide winnowing from us ! 

Off the otter swims ! 
Round her fortress sails the fish-hawk ; 

Down the wood-duck skims ! 
Glitters rich the golden lily, 

Glows the Indian Plume, 
On yon point a deer is drinking, 

Back he shrinks in gloom ; 
Now the little sparkling rapid ! 

Now the fairy cove ! 
Here the sunlight-mantled meadow ! 

There the sprinkled grove ! 

—Alfred B. Street. 

The St. Regis and Salmon Rivers are 
additional outlets into the St. Lawrence ; 
and the Saranac and the Au Sable, that 
run northeast in nearly parallel lines, dis- 
charge their waters into Lake Champlain. 

The Au Sable is distinguished for the 
dark rocks that uprear their rugged forms 
against its tortuous current, — for the gloomy 
shadows that overhang its steep banks, and 
for its falls of sixty feet near Keeseville, 
where the river enters a narrow chasm, 
called the " Indian Pass," more than one 
hundred feet deep and nearly two miles 
long. 



In the stately Indian Pass, 

From my fount of shadowy glass, 

I struggle along in hollow song 

On my blind and caverned way : 

Sharp, splintered crags ascend, 

Wild firs above me bend, 

And I leap and dash with many a flash, 

To find the welcome day. 

— Alfred B. Street. 

The southern declivity of the mountains 
is drained by the Boreas, the Schroon, the 
Cedar, the Indian, and many other streams, 
all of which eventually swell the volume of 
the Hudson. 

The Adirondacks, and the great wilder- 
ness adjacent, that were, until quite recently, 
the retreat of the hardy trapper or sports- 
man in quest of deer, bear, beaver, otter, 
and other game that is still plentiful, are 
now the summer home of thousands of 
people. Where there are no roads, the 
numerous lakes and streams serve as ave- 
nues of travel ; and hotels, taverns, and cot- 
tages are found in almost every quarter. 
Besides the lakes already mentioned, 
Schroon, Placid, Chateaugay (shat-o-ga/), 
Blue Mountain, and others are places of 
resort. 

But there are mysteries in the Adiron- 
dacks that the most daring have not yet 
solved. Says Mr. Colvin : x — " Few fully 
understand what the Adirondack wilder- 
ness really is. It is a peculiar region ; for 
although its geographical center can be 
readily and easily reached by the lakes and 
rivers which form a labyrinth of passages 
for boats, on either hand from these broad 
avenues of water are sections filled with the 
most rugged mountains, where unnamed 
water-falls pour in snowy tresses from the 
dark, overhanging cliffs, that remain to-day 
as untrodden by man, and as wild, as when 
the Indian alone paddled his birchen canoe 
upon those streams and lakes. Amid these 

x Superintendent of Surveys made in the Adirondacks, in 
recent years, by authorization of the Legislature of New York. 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



mountain solitudes are places where the 
foot of man never trod ; and here the 
panther has her den among the rocks, and 
rears her savage kittens undisturbed save 
by the growl of bear or screech of lynx, or 
the hoarse croak of raven taking its share 
of the carcass of slain deer." 

We close this sketch of the Adirondacks 
with the following impressive picture of life 
in the wilderness, which many a one, who 
has spent much time in this region, in sum- 
mer or in autumn, will recognize as true to 
nature. 

The Music of the Adirondacks.— jf. T.Headley. 

• " How often we speak of the solitude of 
the forest, meaning, by that, the contrast 
its stillness presents to the hum and motion 
of busy life. Yet the solitudes of .the 
Adirondacks are full of sound, aye, of rare 
music, too. I do not mean the notes of 
birds, for birds rarely sing in the darker, 
deeper portions of the forest. Even the 
robin, which in the fields cannot chirp and 
carol enough, and is so tame that a tyro 
can shoot him, ceases his song the moment 
he enters the forest, and flits silently from 
one lofty branch to another, as if in constant 
fear of a secret enemy. 

" Still you find music there. There is a 
certain kind occurring only at intervals, 
which chills the heart like a dead-march, 
and is fearful as the echo of bursting billows 
along the arches of a cavern. The shrill 
scream of a panther in the midst of an im- 
penetrable swamp, rising in the intervals of 
thunder claps — the long discordant howl of 
a herd of wolves at midnight, slowly travel- 
ing along the slope of a high mountain, you 
may call strange music; yet there are cer- 
tain chords in the heart of man that quiver 
to it, especially when he feels that there is 
no cause of alarm. 

" The lowing of a moose, echoing miles 
away in the gorges — the solitary cry of the 



loon in some deep bay — the solemn hoot of 
the owl, the only lullaby that cradles you to 
sleep, all have their charms, and stir you at 
times like the blast of a bugle. So the 
scream of the eagle, and cry of the fish- 
hawk, as they sweep in measured circles 
over the still bosom of a lake after their 
prey, or the low, half suppressed croak of 
the raven — his black form like some mes- 
senger of death, slowly swinging from one 
mountain to another — are sights and sounds 
that arrest and chain you. Yet these are 
not all — the ear grows sensitive when you 
feel that everything about you treads 
stealthily ; and the slightest noise will some- 
times startle you like the unexpected crack 
of a rifle. 

" But there is one kind of forest music that 
I love best of all. It is the sound of wind 
amid the trees. I* have lain here by the 
hour, on some fresh afternoon, when the 
brisk wind swept by in gusts, and listened 
to it. All is comparatively still, when, far 
away, you catch a faint murmur, like the 
dying tone of an organ with its stops closed 
— gradually swelling into clearer distinctness 
and fuller volume, as if gathering strength 
for some fearful exhibition of its power ; 
until, at length, it rushes like a sudden sea 
overhead, and everything sways and tosses 
about you. For a moment an invisible 
spirit seems to be near — the fresh leaves 
rustle and talk to one another — the pines 
and cedars whisper ominous tidings, and 
then the retiring swell subsides in the dis- 
tance, and silence again slowly settles on the 
forest. Only a short interval elapses when 
the murmur, the swell, the rush, and the re- 
treat, are repeated. 

"If you abandon yourself entirely to these 
influences, you are soon lost in strange illu- 
sions. I have lain and listened to the wind 
moving thus among the branches, until I 
fancied every gust a troop of spirits, whose 
tread over the bending tops I caught afar. 



NEW YORK. 



and whose rapid approach I could distinctly 
measure. My heart would throb and pulses 
bound as the invisible squadrons drew near, 
till as their sounding chariots swept swiftly 
overhead, I ceased listening, and turned to 



look. Thus, troop after troop, they came 
and went on their mysterious mission — 
waking the solitude into sudden life, as they 
passed, and filling it with glorious melody." 



III. RIVERS AND VALLEYS, WITH THEIR TOWNS AND CITIES. 



The river and valley system of New York 
may be said to consist of three general divi- 
sions : — the eastern, embracing the Hudson 
and Mohawk Rivers, and Lakes George and 
Champlain ; — the northern, comprising the 
basins of the St. Lawrence, the Black, the 
Oswego, the Genesee, and the Niagara 
Rivers, respectively, together with those of 
Lakes Ontario and Erie ; — and the southern, 
embracing the basins of the Alleghany, the 
Susquehanna, and the Delaware. 

/. The Hudson River. — General View. 

The largest river belonging exclusively 
to the state, and one of the most important 
in the whole country, is the Hudson. It is 
doubtful what European first discovered it, 
but it was first thoroughly explored, in 
1609, by the Dutch navigator Henry Hud- 
son, whose name it bears, and who ascended 
the stream beyond the mouth of the Mo- 
hawk. Its highest known sources are the 
rills that trickle down the western slope of 
Mt. Marcy, in the Adirondacks, and that 
form, a thousand feet below the summit, the 
little lake called by the Indians " The Tear 
of the Clouds." From this loftiest lakelet 
of New York, the Hudson flows southward, 
gathering volume from numerous streams 
and the outlets of mountain lakes. After 
receiving the waters of the Schroon on the 
north, and the Saconda'ga on the west, it 
turns eastward, and, a little beyond Glens 
Falls, it again sweeps to the south, and 
continues in this direction, with little devia- 
tion, to its mouth. 

At Glens Falls, which is an important 



business point, with an immense lumber 
trade, the river has a fall of fifty feet over a 
precipice some nine hundred feet in length, 
producing a scene of surpassing grandeur. 
Above the falls is a great dam, built by the 
state, with a navigable feeder that supplies 
water to the Champlain Canal. Below the 
falls is a small island, which the novelist. 
Cooper has made famous in his " Last of 
the Mohicans." — " Here, amid the roaring 
of this very cataract, if romance is to be 
believed, the voice of Uncas, the last of the 
Mohicans, was heard and heeded ; here 
Hawk-Eye kept his vigils ; and here David 
breathed his nasal melody." 

One mile above Troy, the Hudson re- 
ceives the Mohawk River on the west. Its 
other principal tributaries are the Hoosac 
and the Croton from the east, and the 
Wallkill from the west. The entire length 
of the river is a trifle over 300 miles, and it 
is navigable by steamboats as far as Troy, 
1 5 1 miles, and by sloops as far as Water- 
ford. The picturesque beauty of its banks, 
and its legendary and historic associations, 
make the Hudson the classic stream of the 
United States ; while its steady and peace- 
ful, yet majestic flow, has often been referred 
to as symbolical of our national strength 
and progress. 

Roll on ! roll on, 
Thou river of the North ! Tell thou to all 
The isles, tell thou to all the continents 
The grandeur of my land. Speak of its vales, 
And of its mountains with their cloudy beards 
Tossed by the breath of centuries ; and speak 
Of its tall cataracts that roll their bass 



122 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Among the choral of its midnight storms, 
And of its rivers lingering through the plains, 
So long that they seem made to measure Time ; 
And of its lakes, that mock the haughty sea ; 
And of its caves, where banished gods might find 
Night large enough to hide their crownless heads ; 
And of its sunsets, glorious and broad 
Above the prairies spread like oceans on 
And on, and on over the far dim leagues, 
Till vision shudders o'er immensity. 

— Wm. Wallace. 

2. Neiv York City. 

Still wert thou lovely,, whatsoe'er thy name, 
New Amsterdam, New Orange, or New York ; 



Whether in cradle sleep in sea-weed laid, 

Or on thine island throne in queenly power arrayed." 

The early Dutch settlers who bought 
Manhattan Island of the Indians in 1626 for 
twenty-four dollars, and founded thereon 
their city of " New Amsterdam," builded 
wiser than they knew. They little dreamed 
that the city around which it was the duty 
of the Mayor to walk every morning at sun- 
rise, to unlock the gates, would ever develop 
into magnificent New York, — the commer- 
cial metropolis and most populous city of 
the Western Hemisphere. 

The present city has little semblance 



Map of New York, Brooklyn and Vicinity. 



NEW YORK. 



123 



of the quaint Dutch town that lay along the 
"Battery," distinguished chiefly for its 
windmills, its rude wooden fortress, the 
gable fronts of its houses, and the grave 
and stately character of its burghers, while 
nearly all the rest of the island was shrouded 
in its primal forest gloom, and the surround- 
ing shores were occupied by the Manhat- 
tans, the Pamunkeys, the Hackensacks, and 
other Indian tribes. The Dutch surren- 
dered to the English in 1664. The follow- 
ing may serve as a picture of their town : 

Where nowadays the Battery lies, 

New York had just begun, 
A new-born babe, to rub its eyes, 

In sixteen sixty-one. 
They christened it Nieuw Amsterdam, 

Those burghers grave and stately, 
And so, with schnapps and smoke and psalm, 

Lived out their lives sedately. 

Two windmills topped their wooden wall, 

On Stadthuys looking down, 
On fort, and cabbage-plots, and all 

The quaintly gabled town ; 
These flapped their wings and shifted backs, 

As ancient scrolls determine, 
To scare the savage Hackensacks, 

Paumunks, and other vermin. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman. 

While New York is situated mostly on 
Manhattan Island, it includes Randall's, 
Ward's, Blackwell's, and other small islands 
in the East River, occupied chiefly by penal, 
reformatory, and charitable institutions ; 
and Governor's, Bedloe's, and Ellis island, in 
the Bay, occupied by the United States 
government. Beyond Spuyten Duyvel 
Creek and the Harlem River, the city also 
occupies the mainland as far as Yonkers on 
the north, and the Bronx River on the east. 
Its entire area is forty-one and a-half 
square miles. 

No other city in the world possesses 
greater natural advantages for foreign com- 



merce and inland trade, and its noble situa- 
tion excites universal admiration. Besides 
its unrivalled facilities of railroad and water- 
way communication with all parts of the 
country, lying, as it does, at the confluence 
of the Hudson and the East rivers, it has 
nearly twenty-one miles of water-front that 
can accomodate the heaviest shipping ; 
while the Upper and Lower bays, and the 
two rivers, afford over one hundred and fif- 
teen square miles of deep and safe an- 
chorage. 

In addition to the main sea approach to 
the city, by way of Sandy Hook and the 
Narrows, large vessels can now pass, with 
greater safety than formerly, to and from 
Long Island Sound, through the East 
River, — the obstructions at " Hell Gate," so 
dangerous to navigation, having been largely 
removed in 1885. With a harbor of such 
excellence and magnitude, New York stands, 
next to London, the most important com- 
mercial centre in the world. 1 

In 1 880 New York had a resident popula- 
tion of more than twelve hundred thousand ; 
but within a radius of twenty miles are large 
cities and towns so closely connected in in- 
terest with the great metropolis as to be 
practically a part of it. The total popula- 
tion within this radius approximates three 
millions ; and tens of thousands of those 
whose homes are in these outlying places, 
are daily conveyed by numerous steamboat, 
ferry, and railway lines, to their business in 
the great city. 

The approaches by water present varied 
and interesting views of the city and vicinity. 
In coming up through the Narrows, — the 
narrow channel from the Ocean into New 



1 New York has more than one-half of the foreign trade of the 
Union, and its inland and coasting trade is very large. For the 
year 1880, its exports were valued at £425,000,000, and its imports 
at $540,000,000; while in the same year it received, of the vast sur- 
plus products of the West, " 170,000,000 bushels of grain and flour; 
2,400,000 barrels and tierces of meats, lard, &c. ; 1,112,000 bales of 
cotton; 3,550,000 packages of butter and cheese; and 300,000,000 
gallons of petroleum." 



124 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



York Bay, — the variegated shores of Staten 
and Long Islands are close at hand, and, 
beyond the broad expanse of the beautiful 
Bay, alive with craft of all kinds, the vast 
city looms up on its island bed. 

Conspicuous objects on both sides of the 
Narrows, and on the small islands, are the 
old forts — Lafayette, Hamilton, Wadsworth, 
etc., with an interesting history — that still 
carry the Nation's flag, but would prove 
sorry defenders of its honor against a for- 
eign foe. An interesting object is the 
" Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World" 
— the gift of the French sculptor Bartholdi — 
that lifts its huge form above Bedloe's 
Island, and sends its rays of brilliant light a 
lone distance around. 



Bartholdi's Statue. 

Within the city the numerous public 
parks are prominent features, the oldest of 



which are the Battery, at the southern point 
of the island, and, just above it, Bowling 
Green, so-called from its use prior to the 
Revolution. But the most extensive is 
Central Park, in the northern part of the 
city, one of the most beautiful pleasure 
grounds in the world. It is two and a half 
miles long, and covers about 870 acres. 

Some of the noted buildings are the Post 
Office, and the Court House and other city 
and county buildings, in the City Hall Park ; 
the Sub-Treasury and Custom House in 
Wall Street ; the Grand Central Depot in 
42d Street, the largest and finest railroad 
building in America; the Fifth Avenue, 
Windsor, and other hotels ; and a host of 
elegant bank and insurance buildings, 
theatres, libraries, hospitals, churches, etc. 

Cheap and rapid conveyance is furnished 
throughout the city by numerous lines of 
street cars, and by elevated steam railways 
that stretch their iron girders and steel 
tracks, mile after mile, over several of the 
principal thoroughfares on a level with the 
second stories of the buildings. A road 
called the " Arcade Railway," consisting of 
four tracks, is now in process of construction 
under Broadway, from curb to curb, and is 
to extend from the Battery to the upper 
part of the city. 

Among the many important streets is 
Wall Street, which is to New York what the 
city is to the nation — the great financial 
centre. In the northern part of the city are 
many avenues — fashionable promenades- - 
that are noted for their fine churches and 
residences ; but the great central and busi- 
ness thoroughfare is Broadway, 80 feet wide, 
running north from the Battery, through 
the central part of the city, to 59th street. 
In no other quarter is the cosmopolitan 
character of the great city so fully revealed 
as here, in the varied display of dress, and 
feature, and manner, by the crowds that 
throng the sidewalks of this street. 



NEW YORK. 



I2 5 



" Hither they come and thither they go ; 
Like a mighty river they ebb and flow, 
With a rushing sound as of falling rain, 
Or of wind that ripples the grassy plain : 
The old and the young, the sad and the gay, 
Jostle each other on bright Broadway." 

—N. G. Shepherd. 

Although New York is pre-eminently a 
commercial city, its manufacturing interests 
are large, varied, and important. In value 
of product, men's clothing leads all other 
manufactures. The sugar and molasses re- 
fineries are next in importance. In the 
extent of its public charities, and in its 
educational facilities, New York is the peer 
of any city in the world. About three mil- 
lions of dollars are annually expended for 
the support of charitable institutions. 

The free or public-school system, noted 
for its efficiency and discipline, includes the 
College of the City of New York for males, 
a Normal College for females, and over 
three hundred grammar and primary 
schools, and several colleges. Private and 
undenominational schools are also numer- 
ous. To all these may be added, as im- 
portant factors in education, several large 
public libraries, and a public press that in 
extent and character has probably no equal 
in the world. 

New York is a healthy city. This is 
largely due to its situation between two 
rapid rivers that carry off its sewage, and 
to its supply of pure water, that comes from 
Croton River, in the upper part ot West- 
chester County, through an aqueduct 40 
miles long, 7^ feet wide, and 8^ feet 
high. The water is carried across the 
Harlem River on High Bridge, a granite 
structure 1460 feet in length, with 14 piers 
and 15 arches, and 116 feet above the 
water. Two receiving reservoirs in Central 
Park cover 35 acres; and from another re- 
servoir at 40th street, that holds 20,000,000 
gallons, the water is distributed in pipes 
throughout the city. 



The cost of the water-works of New 
York, up to the present time, cannot be far 
from $28,000,000 ; and still another aque- 
duct is being built, costing millions more, 
to furnish an additional water supply. Yet 
these large sums are but a fraction of the 
vast public and varied expenditure required 
for the well-being of a large and rapidly 
increasing population. 

j. Brooklyn. 

Brooklyn, just across the East River 
from New York, on Long Island, with over 
700,000 inhabitants, is the second city o 1 " 
the state, and the third city of the United 
States, in population. Its manufactures 
and business interests are remarkably large. 
The water-front of S}4 miles, lined with 
piers, warehouses, basins, etc., gives the 
city immense commercial advantages. It 
is one of the greatest grain depots, and has 
three of the largest receiving basins for 
shipping in the world. 

The massive Atlantic Dock, fronting 
Governor's Island, has an area of 40 acres, 
and can accommodate 500 vessels at one 
time. It is surrounded by immense ware- 
houses, covering 20 acres more. South of 
this are the Erie and Brooklyn basins with 
60 and 40 acres of water respectively. 
Another interesting section of the water 
front is Wallabout Bay, further up the 
river, where are located the U. S Navy Yard 
and various government buildings, com- 
prising 144 acres in all. About 2,000 men 
are emplo)^ed here. A remarkable feature 
of the government works is an immense 
granite dry dock, for inspection and repairs 
of vessels, costing over two million dollars. 

As a place of residence Brooklyn has 
few equals. It occupies an elevated position 
that affords fine views, and its wide and 
straight streets are very attractive. From 
the " Heights " a fine view is had of New 
York, the Hudson and East River, the Bay, 
and the New Jersey shore. The city is not 



126 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



specially remarkable for the size or archi- 
tecture of its buildings, but from the great 
number of its church edifices it is called the 
"City of Churches." 

Like New York, Brooklyn enjoys the 
possession of a beautiful pleasure-ground — 
Prospect Park — containing 5 50 acres. This 
park is located on an elevation in the south- 
east portion of the city, that afforded unu- 
sual natural advantages of wooded hills and 
broad meadows, which have been skilfully 
and tastefully improved. It commands a 
grand view of the harbor and bays, and 
even of the Atlantic Ocean. Leading from 
it are fine driveways to Coney Island, the 
great sea-side resort and breathing-place of 
the cities' multitudes, with its magnificent 
hotels, fine sea-bathing, and other attrac- 
tions. 

On the same ridge with Prospect Park, 
and farther south, is the great city of the 
dead, Greenwood Cemetery, widely noted 
for its natural and artificial beauties, occu- 
pying 413 acres. 



But a river flows between them, 
And the river's name is — Death." 

The rapid development of Brooklyn has 
been largely due to its nearness to New 
York, with which city it has always been 
closely connected by numerous steam-fer- 
ries. It is now still more closely connected 
with the metropolis by a gigantic suspension 
bridge, the greatest in the world, that spans 
the East River. The main supports are two 
stone towers, each 275 feet high, built on 
the opposite shores of the river. Between 
these are stretched four cables of steel wire, 
each 16 inches in diameter, that in turn sus- 
tain the roadways, consisting of two rail- 
way tracks, a footwalk 1 3 feet wide, and four 
wagon tracks. The floor of the bridge is 
135 feet above the water. Its chief span, 
between the towers, is 1,595 feet. The 
width of the bridge is 85 feet, and its 
extreme length is 6,000 feet. It extends 
from the City Hall Park in New York, to 
the vicinity of the City Hall in Brooklyn, 
and has cost nearly sixteen millions of dol- 



View of New York, Brooklyn and the Bridge from Brooklyn Heights. 

lars. On the 24th day of May, 1883, this 
mammoth structure was formally opened to 
the public, when " The Wedding of the 
Towns," as it has been called, was celebrated 
with impressive and joyous ceremonies. 
The occasion is happily commemorated in 
the following lines : 



Side by side rise the two great cities, 
Afar on the traveller's sight; 

One, black with the dust of labor, 
One, solemnly still and white. 

Apart, and yet together, 

They are reached in a dying breath, 



NEW YORK. 



127 



The Wedding of the Towns. 

Let all of the bells ring clear, 

And all of the flags be seen ; 
The King of the Western Hemisphere 

Has married the Island Queen! 
For years he watched and waited 

Along the river side, 
And vowed that she was fated 

To be his own fair bride ; 
Full many a night he wooed her 

Upon her lofty throne, 
And he hath long pursued her, 

To make the prize his own; 
Nor thankless his endeavor, 

Nor coy the royal maid, 
But, like true-love's course ever, 

The banns were long delayed! 

And boys to men had grown, 

And men their graves had sought ; 
The gulf was yet between them thrown, 

And the wooing came to nought. 
Though couriers oft were dashing 

'Twixt him and his adored, 
Still was the river flashing 

Between them like a sword. 
In heart they well were mated ; 

And patiently and long 
They for each other waited — 

These lovers true and strong. 
Let never a flag be hidden ! 

Let never a bell be dumb! 
The guests have all been bidden — 

The wedding-day has come ! 

For many a golden year 

Shall gleam this silvery tie : 
The wondering world will gather here 

And gaze with gleaming eye. 
Philosophers will ponder 

How, blessed by the hand of Heaven, 
The world has another wonder 

To add to its famous seven ; 
Philanthropists will linger 

To view the giant span, 
And point with grateful finger 

Where man has toiled with man ; 



4- 



And all will bless the year 

When, in the May-month green, 

The King of the Western Hemisphere 
Was wed to the Island Queen. 

— Will Carleton. 

The Hudson River. — Lotver Section. 



The lower Hudson is a deep stream, 
about one mile wide as far up as Tappan 
and Haverstraw bays, where it expands to 
a width of three or four miles. Passing up 
the river from New York, the first import- 
ant place is the city of Yonkers, on the 
east shore, picturesquely situated on rising 
ground. 

Tarrytown, now a pleasant village, 26 
miles above New York, is associated with 
scenes of the Revolution. Near here Andre, 
the British spy, was captured by Paulding 
and his associates. He was executed just 
across the river, at Tappan. With Tarry- 
town is pleasantly associated " Sunnyside," 
three miles south of the village, the home 
of Washington Irving, the genial humorist ; 
and two miles above the village is " Sleepy 
Hollow," the scene of Ichabod Crane's 
encounter with the Galloping Hessian, that 
Irving so graphically describes in his 
Sketch Book. " It is a charming spot, 
partly overgrown by trees, where the per- 
fect stillness is broken only by the warbling 
of the brook that runs through it." 

Sing Sing, beautifully situated on a slope 
of hills overlooking Tappan Bay, is the 
location of one of the state prisons. A few 
miles above the village is Croton Lake, the 
fountain-reservoir of New York's water sup- 
ply. At Haverstraw, on the west shore, 
are numerous brick yards, that turned out 
300 million bricks in 1885. Three miles 
north of Haverstraw is Stony Point, the site 
of a fort during the Revolution, and 
memorable as the scene of two severe con- 
tests. 

Forty-five miles above New York, where 



128 GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 

"The Highland rocks and hills in solemn grandeur rise," 

these rocky fastnesses contract the river 
into narrow limits, and the water becomes 
of still greater depth. Peekskill, at the 
lower gate of the Highlands, is noted for its 
iron works.' West Point, on a bold pro- 
montory rising more than 150 feet above 
the river, its top a level and fertile plateau, 
is the seat of the United States Military 
Academy, and was the scene of important 
events during the Revolution. Fort Put- 
nam crested the lofty summit of Mount 
Independence, westward of the plateau, and 
all the neighboring summits were fortified ; 
while across the river, to obstruct the pas- 
sage of the English ships, was stretched 
the famous iron chain, with links over two 
feet long, made of iron bars two and a half 
inches square, and each link weighing about 
140 pounds. 

At West Point the Highland cliffs seem 
to close in on the river as if to stop its 
farther progress; but although every anal- 
ogy of Nature would lead one to expect 
here a rocky barrier, the Atlantic tide 
sweeps on, 

" Low sunk between the Alleghanian hills," 

a hundred miles beyond the mountain chain 
which elsewhere divides the valley of the 
Mississippi from the Atlantic coast. " Noth- 
ing can be more impressive than the Ocean's 
deep and sullen ebb and flow far down 
among the great foundations of those stern 
gray heights. They stand as if arrested 
here when pressing upon the river current, 
and an enduring gateway is made through 
their stern portals. Ranged for many miles 
along the Hudson, had these mountains 
thrown a single spur across the stream, 
how would it have changed the course of 
events in our land ! Impressed with this 
M „ . p . unbroken current through the Highlands, 

Map. Hudson River. ° ° 



NEW YORK. 



i 29 



Entrance to the Highlands. Viewed from the South. 



the observant Indian called it ' The River 
of the Mountains.' " 

j. The Hudson River : Upper Section. 

Above the Highlands the Hudson and 
its valley both broaden, and instead of the 
bold and imposing aspects characteristic of 
the central portion, gentle eminences and 
cultivated fields, interspersed with thriving 
towns and cities, are prominent features of 
the landscape. At Newburgh, just above 
the Highlands, the oldest settlement in 
Orange County, and a thriving city with 
extensive manufactures, the American army 
was disbanded at the close of the Revo- 
lution. Washington's headquarters were 
in the old stone mansion, still preserved, 
and now owned by the state, a short dis- 
tance south of the city. 

Poughkeepsie, fourteen miles further up 
the river, is one of the most beautiful cities 
of the state, and its trade and manufactur- 
ing interests are large. Vassar Female 
College is located here, and the city is 
famous for its schools. A few miles above, 
on the opposite shore, stands Kingston, the 
centre of the great ice industry of the Hud- 
son, and largely engaged in the river traffic. 
Hydraulic cement and the celebrated blue- 



stone, or flagging, are shipped here in im- 
mense quantities, the hydraulic cement 
alone averaging a million and a half barrels 
annually. The limestone for this cement is 
obtained by tunnelling the hills, and by 
running galleries in the layers of rock, 
sometimes nearly two miles in length, and 
often at a depth of 200 feet. 1 At Kingston, 
in 1777. was formed the first constitution of 
the state, and here the first legislature as- 
sembled. Hudson, at the head of ship 
navigation, 29 miles below Albany, before 
the war of 181 2, owned more vessels than 
New York. It has still a large shipping 
trade. 

Albany, the state capital, 145 miles north 
of New York City, and Troy, at the head of 
tide-water and of steam navigation, six 
miles north of Albany, are the largest cities 
of the Hudson valley. Each is the centre 



1 Hydraulic Cement. While common building mortar, 
formed of common limestone, sand, and water (see Note, p. 32,) is 
a cement that hardens when exposed to the air, the hydraulic 
cements harden when immersed in water, and are extensively used 
in the construction of cisterns, cellars, and for cementing stone in 
the foundations of bridges, breakwaters, reservoirs, &c. The ma- 
terial from which hydraulic cements are made is what is called an 
argillaceous or clayey limestone, containing considerable carbonate 
of magnesia, silica, and clay, as well as carbonate of lime. It is 
calcined (pulverized by heat), in the same manner as common lime- 
stone, and then mixed with sand and water, and applied before it 
hardens. 



i 3 o 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



of five important railroads, which, with the 
Erie and Champlain Canals, and the river 
traffic that has grown up, have wonderfully 
increased the growth and prosperity of the 
two cities. Each has varied and important 
manufacturing interests. Albany is like- 
wise a great grain and cattle market, and 
the chief lumber depot of the state ; while 
the iron and steel industries of Troy exert 
a controlling influence over the iron interest 
throughout all the country east of the Alle- 
ghanies ; and its shirt and collar manufac- 
tures, having a value of more than three 
million dollars annually, are the most ex- 
tensive in the United States. 

In early times Albany was the centre of 
the Indian trade, and an important point in 
military operations. No foe ever invaded 
it. It became the state capital in 1797. 
Its public buildings and noted institutions 
are numerous ; and the new Capitol build- 
ing, commenced in 1 87 1 and not yet com- 
pleted, a huge structure of granite, richly 
decorated inside and out, will be the largest 
and most costly public building in America, 
except the National Capitol at Washington. 

Other prominent places in the basin of 
the upper Hudson are Lansingburgh, Wa- 
terford, and Cohoes. The latter is especially 
important, and derives its prosperity from 
its unusually extensive manufactures. The 
Mohawk River furnishes an immense water- 
power here that is utilized by a succession 
of canals. Six large cotton-mills supply the 
chief industry, that of knit-goods, with 
material, and twenty or more knitting-mills 
do the work. This place produces a third 
of all the hosiery manufactured in the United 
States. 

6. Lakes George and Champlain. 

East and north of the sources of the 
Hudson lie two lakes, which, with the river, 
form one almost continuous natural water- 
way from New York Bay to the St. Law- 



rence. The first of these lakes, separated 
from the Hudson by only a narrow strip of 
land, is Lake George, called by the Indians 
" Horicon," — or Silvery Waters. Set in a 
mountain frame -work, this body of water, 
thirty-six miles long and from two to three 
miles wide, is remarkable for the hundreds 
of islands that stud its surface, for its trans- 
parent water, and its exquisite scenery. 
These have made it a prominent snmmer 
resort. 

In the midst of the mountains all bosky and wooded, 

Its bosom thick gemmed with the loveliest isles, 
Its borders with vistas of Paradise studded, — 

Looking up to the heaven, sweet Horicon smiles. 
Thick set are its haunts with old legend and story, 

That, woven by genius, still cluster and blend ; 
But its beauty will cling, like a halo of glory, 

When legend and record with ages shall end. 

— Henry Morford. 

Just beyond Lake George, and connected 
with it, lies Lake Champlain, 146 miles long, 
and varying in breadth from one to fifteen 
miles. The largest vessels can navigate its 
whole extent. Enclosed by high moun- 
tains — the Adirondacks on the west, and 
the Green Mountains on the east — this lake 
is celebrated for its magnificent scenery. 
The southern arm of Champlain is connected 
with the Hudson River by a canal 66 miles 
in length, running from West Troy to 
Whitehall. This latter place is a large 
lumber and boat-building depot ; and Pitts- 
burgh, a thriving village on the western 
shore of the lake, ships 'arge amounts of 
lumber and iron from the Adirondack 
region. 

Throughout its whole length, this great 
eastern valley of the state occupies a con- 
spicuous place in American history and 
legend. Its lower section, along the Hud- 
son, was the stronghold of our country in 
the Revolutionary war. It was the fortress 
of our liberties ; and there is hardly a point, 



PRIVATE CIRCULAR. 



Vineland, N. J., October, 1886. 

To 

In sending you the accompanying pages, I indulge the hope that 
the subject embraced in them, and its mode of treatment, will be a suf- 
ficient apology for the liberty which I have taken. 

I have long had in contemplation, and have partly written out, 
an educational work, the general character, purpose, and plan of which 
I wish to submit to some of our leading educators, that I may obtain 
their views of the proposed "New Departure," before I decide upon the 
completion of the work. As the most convenient way of attaining my 
object, I have had some portions of the work put in type, and printed, 
— of which I herewith enclose a copy. 

As one of the results of a long experience in the school-room, 
and, after that, as a writer of educational text-books, I have been led to 
regard Geography as the least interesting, and the least satisfactory, of 
all the studies taught in our schools ; and I know that many ot our best 
teachers have long been of the same opinion, although some of our 
modern Geographical text-books are models of their kind, and greatly 
superior, especially in their maps, to anything in the same line that has 
preceded them. The old plan has been admirably carried out, but it is 
the old plan still. 

Without any disparagement of these works I ask, is not some- 
thing more needed, in this department, that shall widen its scope, en- 
hance the interest felt in it, and carry forward the study of Geography 
to better results than have been heretofore attainable? 

Please turn to the accompanying extracts from the proposed 
work herein referred to, and see in what manner the " Geography, In- 
dustries, and Resources" of Maine, New Hampshire, and New York, 
have been treated; and then imagine all the other States and Territories 
of the Union treated in a somewhat similar manner, — and so of all the 
other countries of the world; and you will then be able to form some 



idea of the plan on which, departing from the old method, we would 
treat this important subject, for school purposes. 

But it will be said, the proper execution of this plan will require 
four or five books ! True. And are all .these to be studied? No; not 
as pupils study for the purpose of recitation. Take Maine, for example. 
Suppose that as good a map of that State as can be made is presented 
on page 24, and that the pupils first study the map, aided by the ques- 
tions on the opposite page. Then let the succeeding 18 pages devoted 
to Maine be used as ordinary reading lessons. These readings, it will 
be seen, are not confined to dry geographical details, but, embracing, 
as they do, a wide range of strictly collateral and dependent subjects, 
with descriptions of scenery, and such poetic and prose selections as are 
deemed appropriate, they possess considerable ya/iety of matter and of 
interest. Hence they will not only impress upon the, pupil the location 
of places, but they will greatly extend his knowledge of the industries 
and. resource&of the state, present and prospective; as based.- on its phys- 
ical geography an,d the character of the people. The- fnere, knowledge 
of prominent localities, without somewhat enlarged views bfiithose phys- 
ical aspepts that have given -prominence to some towns and cities and 
some countries over others, in the march of civilization, is of little worth. 
, . Please observe that the ■■J[ Questions oft the Maps" may all be 
answered from the maps alone;.. but as they- have the same order of ar- 
rangement as the descriptive matter which follows, the inquiring pupil, 
in his answers to the map questions, can readily supplement them with 
much additional matter from the readings, if he desires to do so. It is 
well to let this be optional with'the pupil There are no separate ques- 
tions to the reading matter. 

In using the work for Geography and Reading combined, I would 
suggest that the, pupil should study thoroughly his own State, and per- 
haps one other State s selected by the class, making u*se, in those cases, 
of the descriptive matter also, in answering the, map questions. Beyond 
that, the descriptive • matter should be : used for readings .only, and not 
for study and recitation, except as students should voluntarily make use 
of it in their map studies. But they rqay, properly, b,e questioned on 
their reading lessons 

I have thus given a brief and necessarily imperfect outline -of the 
general plan and purpose of the. work, but not, of all the; .educational 



reasons for it. Among these, the following may be briefly alluded to : 
i . It is customary for many of our schools to introduce two series 
of Readers, in order to obtain a sufficient amount and variety of read- 
ing matter. The growing tendency is to introduce more and more 
reaumg, in place of the old-fashioned study for drill and recitation. 
Tins tendency I regard as an educational improvement; as what is 
drudgingly committed to memory is much sooner forgotten than what 
is read with interest. Would it not be well, therefore, that one of the 
series should be of the Geographical character, of which specimens are 
given in the accompanying pages? Lat it be conceded, then, that the 
plan here outlined shall form a -series of Supplementary Readers, on 
a Geographical and Industrial basis. 

2. Our current School Geographies are designed, and used, for school 
• study and recitation only They are seldom, if ever, taken up and read 
by the pupil out of the school-room, or by the family ._ They are not 
attractive reading. Can the subject be made attractive? Will not this 
Supplementary series, if completed as here proposed, give additional 
interest to Geographical studies, both in the school-room and Out of it? 
Some features in the maps may also be alluded to: 
i. It will be seen, from the size of page used in the accompanying 
selections, and from the spaces left for maps, that the separate maps of 
tlv; several states will be considerably larger than the average maps of 
the states in our School Geographies. Moreover, by giving enlarged 
maps of important sections, it is thought that the maps will be quite as 
useful as they would be if the state maps alone were on a much larger 
scale. See the spaces left for sectional maps under Maine, New Hamp- 
shire, and New York. 

2. In our School Geographies the names of counties are seldom in- 
serted, for want of room. This is a serious omission, as the counties 
are so often referred to. But how can it be remedied? I purpose to 
designate the counties, in all the state maps in which there is not abun- 
dant room for their names, by conspicuous numerals, with references to 
them in an alphabetical list of the counties. See Maps, pp. 24 and — 
This will make the maps, virtually, much more full than they otherwise 
could be, and will not confuse by a great multiplicity of names. 

3. It is our purpose to have the state and sectional maps lined in 
squares of statute miles, — 10, 20, or 50 miles square, etc., whereby the 



measures of distances, in the most appreciable form, will be constantly 
before the pupil. This is regarded as an important educational feature. 

The completed work will be in much better shape than is shown 
in our specimen pages. 

In estimating the cost, to the pupils, of such a work as is here 
proposed, it should be borne in mind that the pupil gets a complete 
Geography ', much more full than ordinary, and a Scries of Readers also. 

It may, perhaps, be desirable to have this work preceded by a 
smaller primary work, on a plan somewhat similar to this. 

The undersigned earnestly hopes that all who receive this Circu- 
lar will respond to it at an early date, and not only give their views of 
the plan that is here developed, but that they will make any suggestions 
that they may think desirable. The authors will be glad to receive in- 
formation as to any important industries, resources, natural scenery, 
poetic allusions, etc., or other matters of interest relating to the state or 
section of country in which our correspondents reside.and which we 
might chance to overlook. 

In conclusion we ask : Will the best interests of education, in the 
school and in the family, be promoted by such an educational series as 
we here propose? Or, shall we lay it aside, with all our accumulated 
materials for the work? It will be as our leading educators say; for 
we send out this Circular, and the accompanying specimen pages, for 
no other purpose than to learn their views. What shall the verdict be? 
Very respectfully, 

MARCIUS WILLSON. 



Note. Since the plan of the present work was designed, and partly 
written out, I have seen " The Royal School Series of Geographical 
Readers" six in number, published by Nelson & Sons, Edinburgh and 
London, and to be had at 42 Bleecker St., New York, I allude to this 
work to show that the same want has been felt in the English schools 
as by many teachers here, and that teachers may obtain the Foreign 
Series and compare it with the plan here outlined, if they would like to 
do so. M. W 



The idea has been suggested that it might, perhaps, be best to 
confine the work, for awhile, to the two volumes devoted to the United 
States, on account of expense to pupils. 



NEW YORK. 



*3i 



a mountain height, or a deep ravine, that 
does not recall heroic memories. 

The waters of the upper valley are per- 
haps still more deeply tinged with blood, 
and they have wilder and older records of 
savage contests. But they are none the less 
celebrated for their combats of disciplined 
warfare. Crown Point, Plattsburgh, Ticon- 
deroga, and other points on Lake Cham- 
plain, and Forts George and William Henry 
on Lake George, are among the historic 
names that tell where relentless war " star- 
tled the echoes of these beautiful lakes, and 
disturbed their wonted quiet and repose." 

7. Ihe Mohawk and its Valley. 

The Mohawk River, which, as we have 
noted, intersects the Hudson above Troy, is 
intimately associated with it in historical 
interest and geographical importance. It 
rises in Lewis County, and runs for 135 
miles through a valley of remarkable fertil- 
ity and great natural beauty, skirted by up- 
lands that stretch away to other valleys and 
mingle with still loftier hills. At Little 
Falls, an important village, the centre of a 
fine dairy district, the river forces its way 
through mountain barriers, falling 42 feet 
in three quarters of a mile, and affording 
great water-power for large and varied 
manufactures. 

Here the granite walls, on either side, 
rise to a height of nearly 500 feet, and 
ages ago they doubtless formed the crown 
of a cataract as magnificent as Niagara, that 
poured its flood into the great gulf, more 
than 100 feet deep, below the present cas- 
cades. From this gulf " rocky spikes, like 
church spires, shoot upward, some of them 
to the surface of the water." The Erie 
Canal, that runs along the Mohawk from 
Rome to the Hudson, at Little Falls has 
been cut through solid rock, a distance of 
two miles. 

At "The Noses," in Montgomery county, 
6 A 



the Mohawk makes another depression, and 
at Cohoes, one mile from its mouth, it has 
its greatest fall. The river is here more 
than one hundred yards wide, and perfectly 
rock-ribbed on both sides. The fall is nearly 
70 feet perpendicular, in addition to the tur- 
bulent rapids above and below. The canals, 
to which we have elsewhere referred, fre- 
quently lessen the volume of the stream so 
much as to lay bare the falls, and disclose 
here and there the rocky bed of the river, 
while the surface of the stream is also often 
streaked and discolored by the dye-stuffs 
used in the factories. Thus the hand of 
man, in the grand march of industrial pro- 
press, has robbed the river of much of its 
natural grandeur and beauty ; — a result that 
a poet deplores as follows : 

The Cataract of the Mohazvk. 

Ye black rocks, huddled like a fallen wall, 

Ponderous and steep, 
Where silver currents downward coil and fall, 

And rank weeds weep ! — 
Thou broad and shallow bed, whose sullen floods 
Show barren islets of red stones and sand, — 
Shrunk is thy might beneath a fatal Hand, 
That will erase all memories from the woods. 

No more with war-paint, shells, and feathers grim, 

The Indian chief 
Casts his long, frightful shade from bank or brim. 

A blighted leaf 
Floats by,— the emblem of his history ! 

For though when rains are strong, the cataract 
Again rolls on, its currents soon contract, 
Or serve for neighboring mill and factory. 

A cloud — of dragon's blood in hue — hangs blent 

With streaks and veins 
Of gall-stone, yellow, and of orpiment, 

O'ef thy remains. 
Never again, with grandeur, in the beam 
Of sunrise, or of noon, or changeful night, 
Shalt thou in thunder chant thine old birthright : 
Fallen Mohawk ! pass to thy stormy dream ! 

— Richard H. Home. 



132 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



The chief tributaries of the Mohawk are 
the Schoharie River from the south, which 
rises in the Catskills, and West and East 
Canada creeks from the north, which help 
drain the Chateaugay (shat-o-ga) range of 
the Adirondacks. In the most westerly of 
these creeks the Trenton Falls, six in num- 
ber, occupy a ravine two miles long, with an 
aggregate descent of 3 1 2 feet. These cas- 
cades are very beautiful, and in some places 
the rocky walls are 150 feet high. 

Like the Hudson valley, the valley of 
the Mohawk has been the pathway of im- 
portant events. The great Indian confed- 
eracy — the Iroquois, or Six Nations — saw 
its commanding geographical position, and 
made it the central point of their domain. 
On the advent of the white man, the then 
deep recesses and almost unbroken forests 
of the Mohawk became the scene of a 
bloody and protracted warfare that extended 
over the plains of Western New York. In 
Revolutionary times this warfare was con- 
tinued with even greater ruthlessness and 
severity, until, in 1777, the battle of Sara- 
toga, — the scene of Burgoyne's surrender, 
— " the field of the grounded arms," — vir- 
tually ended the contest. 

Many of the towns and cities along the 
Mohawk, and in its outlying valleys, recall 
memories of these bloody conflicts, in 
which some of the most heroic spirits of 
our country were engaged. Among these 
places are the old Dutch city of Schenec- 
tady, now the centre of the broom manu- 
facture of the valley, and the seat of Union 
College ; — Rome, a busy city of Oneida 
county, the site of old Fort Stanwix, after- 
ward known as Fort Schuyler; and Oris- 
kany, where was fought one of the most 
stubborn contests of the war. 

The largest city of the valley, Utica, 
does not stand on historic ground ; but with 
Gloversville, four miles from the river in 
Fulton County, where are made two-thirds 



of the kid gloves and buckskin mittens 
manufactured in the United States, Utica 
shares, along with its neighbors of the val- 
ley, the thrift and enterprise that have made 
what was once " the dark and bloody 
ground," a paradise of fertility, repose, and 
peace. 

8. The Black, and other Rivers. 

The headwaters of the Mohawk are 
frequently mingled, when swollen by floods, 
with the waters flowing into Lake Ontario ; 
but this river is more immediately connected 
with that great inland sea by means of the 
Black River Canal, 35 miles long, which 
runs from Rome to Lyons Falls, in Lewis 
County. The Black River rises in Herkimer 
County, and has a tortuous course of 125 
miles, partly through a rocky and hilly 
country rich in iron ore and limestone. It 
empties into Lake Ontario near Sackett's 
Harbor, one of the best harbors on the lake. 
Here are the Madison Barracks built by 
the government in 18 16; and here were the 
headquarters of a division of the American 
fleet in the war of 181 2. On account of 
rapids the Black River is navigable only 
between Carthage and Turin, forty miles. 
At the handsome and busy city of Water- 
town, the river falls 112 feet in its passage 
through the city, affording an immense 
water-power that is utilized in extensive 
and varied manufactures. 

The other principal rivers of the state 
north of the Mohawk, not elsewhere con- 
sidered, are the Oswegatchie and the Grass, 
both coursing down from the Adirondacks 
but a few miles apart, broken at intervals 
by rapids, and running through picturesque 
hills and fertile valleys to the mighty St. 
Lawrence, that takes its majestic way 
Through massy woods, mid islets flowering fair, 
And blooming glades, where the first sinful pair 
For consolation might have weeping trod, 
When banished from the garden of their God. 

— Thos. Moore. 



NEW YORK. 



1 33 



Ogdensburg, at the junction of the Oswe- 
gatchie and the St. Lawrence, is known as 
the " Maple City," from its handsomely built 
streets lined with fine maples. It is a port 
of entry, and has a large general trade with 
Canada and the western lake cities. 

The St. Lawrence forms the northern 
limit of only two counties of the state — 
Jefferson and St. Lawrence. Here its rich 
valley is nearly ten miles wide, and along 
the latter county the width of the river is 
about two miles. Where it emerges from 
Lake Ontario it expands into the " Lake of 
the Thousand Isles," so-called on account 
of its group of rocky islets — estimated at 
1,500 in number — the most numerous col- 
lection of river-islands in the world. They 
vary in size from a few yards to several 
miles in length, and present an endless 
variety of charming scenery. Some are 
mere sy'enite 1 rocks, — 

" rocky bastions old, 
Shaped when the ancient ages rolled 
Around their thunder-rended forms 
Earthquakes and unremembered storms ! — " 

while others are beautifully fringed with 
luxuriant verdure and shaded by lofty trees. 
Many of them are places of resort and resi- 
dence during the summer months. 

p. The Basin of the Oszvego and the adjacent 
Lakes. 

What may properly be considered exten- 
sions of the Mohawk valley, are the basin of 
the Oswego River running northward, and 
the rolling country westward along the 
northern borders of the inland lakes. The 
Oswego is a short river — 24 miles long — but 
it is remarkable for the volume of water that 
it carries to Lake Ontario. " Beautifully 
significant," says a historian, " are the Indian 

1 Sy'knite is the name given to that variety of granite in which 
hornblende is substituted in place of mica. (See granite, p. 30). 
Therefore we have micarcous granite and hornblende granite. 
Syenite was so named because it was originally mined at Sy-c'nc , 
in Egypt. 



names of Oswego and Ontario — rapid water 
and pretty lake — for the river comes foaming 
down broad rapids several miles before it 
expands into Oswego harbor and mingles 
its flow with the blue waters of Ontario." 

Some of these rapids are within the limits 
of the growing and picturesque City of 
Oswego, at the mouth of the river, where 
the harbor has three miles of wharfage, and 
the protection afforded by extensive break- 
waters. The city is a great grain and coal 
depot, and carries on an extensive trade 
with Canada in barley and lumber. Among 
its numerous industries are vast flouring 
mills, iron-works and ship yards, and the 
largest starch factory 2 in the world. 

Formed by the Seneca and Oneida 
rivers, the Oswego becomes the general 
outlet of most of the beautiful lakes that are 
so remarkable and important a feature of 
the State. Among these are the Onei'da, 
Ononda'ga, Skaneat'eles, Owas'co, Cayu'ga, 
Sen'eca, Keu'ka (or Crooked), and Canan- 
daigua. These streams and lakes furnish 
abundant water-power at Waterloo, Seneca 
Falls, and Baldwinsville, all on Seneca 
River ; at Fulton and Oswego on Oswego 
River ; at Perm Yan on Keuka outlet ; at 
Phelps on Flint creek and Canandaigua out- 
let; almost the whole length of Skaneateles 
outlet, the fall there being 453 feet in nine 
miles ; and at the city of Auburn on Owasco- 
outlet. 

Auburn has numerous cloth and carpet 
factories, a large trade in agricultural imple- 



- Starch, a granular, white, powdery substance, found in 
every household, is obtained from many vegetables, but principally 
from the cereals, and from Indian corn and potatoes, — and, in this 
country, from Indian corn chiefly, for commercial purposes. It 
has nearly the same composition as sugar. Starch is extensively 
used as a constituent of food, for laundry purposes, making size 
for paper, etc. Arrow root, sago, cassava, and tapioca (purified 
cassava) are the starch products obtained from various tropical 
plants. The starch factories of Oswego cover four acres, and pro- 
duce about twenty-two million pounds of laundry and edible starch 
annually, much of which is sent to European and other foreign 
markets. There are extensive starch factories at Glen Cove, L 
Island, the next in importance to those of Oswego, and that pro- 
duce about nineteen million pounds annually. 



J 34 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Small Lake and 

ments, and valuable limestone quarries. 
One of the state prisons is located here. 
Syracuse, a few miles east, is the largest 
city between Albany and Rochester. It is 
an important railroad and business centre. 
The manufacture of salt is its chief industry. 
The salt springs here, and at Salina (now a 
part of Syracuse) and Geddes, all in Onon- 
daga county, are under the control of the 
state 1 . 

Of the lakes of central New York, 
Cayuga and Seneca are the most important. 
The former is a deep and beautiful sheet of 
water 38 miles long, with an average width 
of 2 miles. Its broad expanse is broken by 
only one island ; — 

" one single gem 
Glitters in its green diadem." 

1 The brine of the Onondaga Salt Springs is obtained, prin- 
cipally, by boring wells, two or three hundred feet deep, in the 
marshy lands which surround Onondaga Lake, whence the water 
is pumped into reservoirs, from which the salt is obtained by 
evaporation, or by artificial heat. The state tax on the Onondaga 
salt was formerly mx cents per bushel, it is now only one cent. 
While from 300 to 350 gallons of sea- water are required, to produce 
a bushel of salt, from 30 to 45 gallons only, of the Onondaga brine, 
are required. — For several years previous to 1871, the annual pro- 
duction of the Onondaga salt works averaged about eight million 
bushels; but the amount has declined since that date, owing to 
stronger brines found in other places, and the cheap importation of 
Liverpool salt. See, also, Warsaw, p 135. — Common salt is a 
chli iride of sodium. 



Terrace Region. 

The banks of the southern part of the 
lake are lined with perpendicular cliffs, 
through which deep and picturesque ravines 
have been cut by running streams. One 
mile east, in Tompkins county, are the 
romantic Taughannock Falls, 190 feet high. 
Not far away are Enfield Falls, a series of 
cascades having a fall of 230 feet ; and Fall 
Creek, having fine cascades and a fall of 500 
feet within a mile. Near the head of the 
lake, on its inlet, is the flourishing village of 
Ithaca, the seat of Cornell University. 

Seneca Lake is about the same size as 
Cayuga, and is peculiarly exempt from 
freezing. Before the winter of 1856 there 
is no record of its having been frozen over ; 
and since then it has been frozen but twice. 
This lake has a large coal and passenger 
traffic, and is connected by the Chemung 
Canal with the river of that name ; by the 
Cayuga and Seneca Canal with the Erie ; 
and also by canal with Keuka Lake. 
Geneva, at its foot, delightfully situated on 
a lofty bank with the broad waters beneath 
it, is the seat ot Hobart College, and is 
noted for its extensive fruit nurseries that 
cover over 3,000 acres. 



NEW YORK. 



7 -35 



Near the head of this lake is Watkins 

i 

Glen, a deep rocky ravine, about 2*4 miles 
long, with numerous beautiful cascades, 
some of which are 60 feet high. The 
"Glen Alpha," "The Labyrinth," the 
" Grotto," the " Cavern Cascade," the 
" Glen Cathedral," the " Glen of the 
Pools," and — the crowning gem of all — the 
" Rainbow Fall," charm and awe the be- 
holder. Here the varied features of Nature 
are depicted in 

" The grace, the grandeur, the wild loveliness, 

And stern magnificence of waterfall ; 

Dark chasm, smooth pool, tall tree, and foamy flash 

Of rapids ; foliage fresh and green as heart 

Of childhood ; curls of feathery ferns which gave 

To the Greek temple the acanthus leaf; 

And mosses plump as formed Titania's floor 

At elfin dances." 

— A. B. Street. 

10. The Basin of the Genesee. 

A few miles westward is another series 
of lakes, some of them equally picturesque 
and scarcely less important. These are the 
Honeoye, the Canadice, the Hemlock, and 
the Conesus, whose waters swell the -volume 
of the Genesee River, as it flows across the 
state from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario. 
Their outlets furnish considerable water- 
power ; and Hemlock Lake, fast becoming 
a local pleasure resort, supplies the city of 
Rochester, more than thirty miles away, 
with pure water for domestic uses. Silver 
Lake, in Wyoming county, Black Creek and 
other streams, also find their way into the 
Genesee. 

Over the hills, a few miles northwest 
from Silver Lake, is the attractive village of 
Warsaw, in the beautiful valley of the 
Oatka, which is diversified by ravines and 
waterfalls. Warsaw has lately sprung into 
great prominence and activity as the centre 
of a large and apparently inexhaustible salt 
deposit district, that was discovered in 1878. 



The manufactured salt obtained here has no 
equal in this country, if it has in the world ; 
and but nineteen or twenty gallons of brine 
are necessary to make a bushel of salt, as 
against thirty to forty-five gallons at the 
Syracuse salt works. [See Note, p. 134.] 

The Genesee River, which rises in Penn- 
sylvania within a few yards of the sources 
of the Alleghany and the Susquehanna, is 
one hundred and fifty miles long, but is 
navigable only from its mouth to the limits 
of the city of Rochester, a distance of seven 
miles. It abounds in beautiful scenery, 
especially in cataracts, and its water-power 
is extensive. Winding, first, through the 
rugged spurs of the Alleghanies, near the 
middle of its course it runs about twenty 
miles through a deep and narrow gorge of 
almost perpendicular sandstone cliffs, in 
some sections 400 feet high. 

In passing through this gorge it descends 
more than five hundred feet, and near the 
southwest corner of Livingston county it 
forms Portage Falls, three cascades, sixty, 
ninety,- and one hundred and ten feet high 
respectively, and all within a distance of two 
miles. Across the chasm, at Portageville, 
the Erie Railway has an iron bridge eight 
hundred feet long and two hundred and 
thirty-four feet above the stream ; and 
here, also, the chasm is crossed by the 
Genesee Valley Canal, that traverses the 
state from Rochester to the Pennsylvania 
line, following the river's course nearly the 
whole distance. 

At Mount Morris, thirty-four miles south 
of Rochester, the river emerges into the 
broad and fertile Genesee Valley, probably 
the oldest cultivated valley in the state, in 
whose bosom, not far from the present vil- 
lage of Geneseo, amid extensive gardens and 
cornfields, once nestled the great capital of 
the Senecas, the western tribe of the Con- 
federate Six Nations. 

What are known as the " Genesee Falls," 



*3 6 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



ninety-six feet high, and the scene of Sam 
Patch's last jump, are in the city of Ro- 
chester. Above them are rapids, and a 
mile below is a double fall of over one 
hundred feet. Rochester is a beautiful city ; 
it is an important canal and railroad centre ; 
its manufactures are extensive ; and the sur- 
rounding country is one of great fertility. 

//. The Niagara River and Lake Erie. 

West of the Genesee lies the basin of 
Lake Erie, and the Niagara River. Catta- 
raugus and Cayuga creeks flow westerly into 
the lake, and Tonawanda Creek into the 
River. Cattaraugus Creek, seventy miles 
long, runs partly through rocky cliffs, and 
furnishes abundant water-power ; as does 
also the Tonawanda, about the same length, 
besides affording slack-water navigation for 
the Erie Canal for ten miles above its 
mouth. 



Niagara River. 



The town of Tonawanda, at the creek's 
junction with the Niagara River, is a great 
lumber depot ; and Batavia, farther up the 
stream, in Genesee county, has some im- 
portant industries, and is the seat of the 
New York Institute for the Blind. Butter- 
milk Falls, also on this creek, are ninety feet 
high. 

The Niagara River, which flows from 
Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the channel 
by which the waters of the four great upper 
lakes — Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Supe- 
rior — are borne onward toward the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence. Where the river emerges 
from Lake Erie stands the important com- 
mercial city of Buffalo — the third city of the 
state in business and population — the western 
terminus of the Erie Canal, and the eastern 
depot and distributing centre for the im- 
mense traffic conducted on the Great Lakes. 
Its harbor is adequate for the large business 
of the city, and amply protected by break- 
waters. Iron manufactures in great variety 
are the chief industry of Buffalo. The city 
is delightfully located, and is noted for an 
extensive system of public parks, with 
broad boulevards connecting them. 

The length of the Niagara River is thirty- 
five 'miles, and its aggregate fall is three 
hundred and thirty-four feet. It encloses 
several islands. About four miles below 
Grand Island, the largest of these, is the 
celebrated cataract of Niagara, which is 
visited by tourists from all parts of the 
world. The river here comes rushing down 
over the rapids in leaping crests that seem 
like a battle-charge of tempestuous waves, 
and is divided by Goat Island into two 
separate falls, the largest of which, the 
Horse-Shoe Fall, on the Canada side, is 
more than two thousand feet across, in its 
curved outlines, and has a perpendicular 
descent of one hundred and fifty eight feet. 

As the deepest water, which forms the 
boundary between the two countries, is in 



NEW YORK. 



137 



the Horse-Shoe Fall, that portion of the fall 
between the boundary line and Goat Island 
is often called the Central Fall. As the 
falling waters are impelled with such force 
as to spring clear of the rocky wall into 
the deep pool below, a cave, called the 
" Cave of the Winds," is thus formed, into 
which persons often enter, and pass over a 
slippery and perilous pathway, behind the 
Central Fall. 



Niagara Falls and Vicinity. 

Here, as one looks up, almost over- 
whelmed by the deafening roar of the 
cataract, he sees huge mounds of rushing 
water, smooth, transparent, and gleaming 
like emeralds, bound over the brink of the 
precipice and break into silvery foam. Says 
a European traveller : — " As I passed slowly 
behind the falling waters, the light streamed 
in through a break in the flood, and I 
paused to look up. It was a spectacle never 
to be forgotten. From a cavern of black 
waters, turned here and there into cataracts 
of brilliants, I looked out into a strange 
world, as fair but as intangible as seen in 
dreams." 

The height of the American Fall is one 
hundred and sixty-seven feet. In the year 
1885 the state acquired, by purchase, full 
control and management of Goat Island, 
and the surroundings of the great cataract 



on the American side. By a liberal policy 
the attractiveness of the locality has been 
much enhanced, and visitors are now secure 
from the various annoyances to which they 
were formerly subjected. The Canadian 
government has taken similar action regard- 
ing the Falls on the Canada side. 

Below the cataract the river flows in a 
gorge or chasm, seven miles in length, and 
almost as wonderful as the cataract itself. 
Three miles below the Falls is the noted 
" Whirlpool," formed by a deep recess in 
the cliff on the Canada side, into which the 
rapid current rushes, and then turning back 
emerges nearly at a right angle from its 
former course. 

Geologists tell us that the cataract of 
Niagara was once some six miles nearer 
Lake Ontario than it is now, and it is still 
receding at the rate of about a foot a year. 
Changes that affect its form and diminish 
its volume are also constantly occurring. 
But Niagara still stands pre-eminent among 
the cataracts of the world, and is inde- 
scribably grand. " By universal consent it 
has long been proclaimed one of the won- 
ders of the world. It is alone in its kind. 
Though a waterfall, it is not to be com- 
pared with other waterfalls. In its majesty, 
its supremacy, and its influence on the soul 
of man, its brotherhood is with the living 
ocean and the eternal hills." The quiet 
flowing of the mighty stream until it begins 
to be broken in its course by the rocks, — 
the rush and roar of the raging waters as 
they hurry onward to the precipice, — and 
the thunder and shock of their fall, with 
the rising clouds of mist and foam arched 
by the glory of "a thousand rainbows," are 
well pictured in the following description. 

Niagara Falls. 

Thou flowest on in quiet, till thy waves 

Grow broken midst the rocks ; thy Current then 

Shoots onward like the irresistible course 



138 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Of Destiny. Ah, terribly they rage, — 

The hoarse and rapid whirlpools there ! My brain 

Grows wild, my senses wander, as I gaze 

Upon the hurrying waters; and my sight 

Vainly would follow, as toward the verge 

Sweeps the wide torrent. Waves innumerable 

Meet there and madden,- -waves innumerable 

Urge on and overtake the waves before, 

And disappear in thunder and in foam. 

They reach, they leap the barrier, — the abyss 

Swallows insatiable the sinking waves. 

A thousand rainbows arch them, and the woods 

Are deafened with the roar. The violent shock 

Shatters to vapor the descending sheets. 

A cloudy whirlwind fills the gulf, and heaves 

The mighty pyramid of circling mist 

To heaven. 

— jfose Maria Heredia. 

The following selection as vividly de- 
picts the overwhelming impression of sub- 
limity and infinite power, which the first 
view of this cataract is so well calculated to 
produce upon the beholder. 

I stood within a vision's spell; 

I saw, I heard. The liquid thunder 
Went pouring to its foaming hell, 
And it fell 
Ever, ever fell 
Into the invisible abyss that opened under. 

I stood upon a speck of ground ; 
Before me fell a stormy ocean. 
I was like a captive bound ; 
And around 
A universe of sound 
Troubled the heavens with ever-quivering motion. 

Down, down forever — down, down forever, 

Something falling, falling, falling, 
Up, up forever — up, up forever, 
Resting never, 
Boiling up forever, 
Steam-clouds shot up with thunder-bursts appalling. 

A tone that since the birth of man 

Was never for a moment broken, 
A word that since the world began, 



And waters ran, 
Hath spoken still to man, — 
Of God and of Eternity hath spoken. 



-Anon. 



It has often been observed that the feel- 
ings inspired by the first view of the cata- 
ract very naturally give place, on farther 
acquaintance, to those of reverential awe 
and contemplation, — an expression of which 
may be found in these lines. 

Flow on forever, in thy glorious robe 

Of terror and of beauty. Yea, flow on 

Unfalhomed and resistless. God hath set 

His rainbow on thy forehead ; and the clouds 

Mantled around thy feet. And he doth give 

Thy voice of thunder power to speak of Him 

Eternally, — bidding the life of man 

Keep silence, — and upon thy rocky altar pour 

Incense of awe-struck praise. The morning stars, 

When first they sang o'er young creation's birth, 

Heard thy deep anthem ; and those wrecking fires, 

That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve 

This solid earth, shall find Jehovah's name 

Graven, as with a thousand diamond spears, 

On thine unending volume. 

— Lydia H. Sigourney. 

12. The Alleghany and the Susquehanna. 

Passing now to the southern division of 
the water-courses of the state, we come first 
to the Alleghany River, that rises in Penn- 
sylvania, and makes an extensive detour 
through Cattaraugus County before re- 
crossing the state boundary line. Near 
Olean, and at other points in its valley, in 
the northern extension of the Pennsylvania 
oil district, petroleum springs 1 were dis- 

1 Crude Petroleum (rock oil) was known to the early settlers 
of New York and Pennsylvania ; and so late as 1850 it was sold as 
a medicine for two dollars a bottle. It was then known as Seneca 
Oil, because the Indians had collected it on the shores of Seneca 
Lake. Since that time it has been obtained in such quantities, by 
boring, that it has sold for thirty cents a barrel ; and the wholesale 
price now is seldom over one dollar a barrel. Up to January 1, 
1884, the value of the crude petroleum produced In the United 
States during the preceding thirty years amounted to 625 million 
dollars. — The illuminating oil, kerosene, that was formerly ob- 
tained from coal by distillation, is now obtained, together with 
many other commercial products, from petroleum. (See, under 
Pennsylvai ia, p. .) 



NEW YORK. 



139 



covered in 1881. One of the tributaries of 
the Alleghany is Conewango Creek, that 
receives the surplus waters of Chautauqua 
Lake. This lake is eighteen miles long, 
and from one to three and a half miles 
wide, and is beautifully located among the 
hills. Although only seven miles from 
Lake Erie it is seven hundred and thirty 
feet higher, and twelve hundred and ninety 
feet above the sea. It has become a popu- 
lar resort, unusually free from all demoral- 
izing influences ; it is visited by vast num- 
bers of people, and is the seat of a remark- 
able school of learning in which instruction 
is given in the summer season in six dif- 
ferent departments, — with a " Literary Cir- 
cle " that has branches throughout the 
country for special reading and improve- 
ment. — Jamestown, on the outlet of the 
lake, is a rapidly growing manufacturing 
centre. 

East of the Alleghany, near Corning, a 
thriving village of Steuben county, the 
Conhocton, the Canisteo, and the Tioga 
River from Pennsylvania, unite and form 
the Chemung. This river irrigates a broad 
and beautiful valley bounded by ranges of 
hills that are only broken by the lateral 
streams flowing into it. The principal city 
in the valley is Elmira, with its many roll- 
ing-mills and other iron works, tanneries, 
and varied manufactures. Hornellsville, on 
the Canisteo, is a manufacturing village of 
importance. The Chemung, in turn, flows 
southeasterly and empties into the east 
branch of the noble Susquehanna, 

" Whose gentle tide 
Picturing the gorgeous beauty of the sky, 
Onward, unbroken by the ruffling wind, 
Majestically flows." 

The chief tributaries of the Susquehanna 
on the north are the Chenango and Una- 
dilla rivers. Its main sources are Schuyler 
and Otsego lakes. The latter is one of the 



most beautiful and celebrated of the inland 
lakes, lying among the hills on the southern 
border of the Mohawk valley. The river 
leaves the lake at the foot of " Mount 
Vision," near which is the beautiful village 
of Cooperstown, and, stealing away under 
shady banks, it rapidly courses southwest- 
erly through wooded glens and mountain 
defiles, or across broad meadow-lands, 
toward the more rugged Alleghanies of 
Pennsylvania. Around a spur of these it 
makes what is known as the " Great Bend," 
then flows past the handsome and thriving 
city of Binghamton and the pleasant village 
of Owego, and finally leaves the State 
near Waverley. The entire course of the 
river in New York is much broken by 
rapids, and it is only during the spring 
floods that it is navigable for boats and 
rafts. Its timber traffic is very large. 

The upper waters of this branch of the 
Susquehanna traverse a country that is 
celebrated for its natural beauty, perfect 
combinations of hill and valley, lake and 
forest, and one replete with interesting his- 
torical associations. This whole region has 
also a wealth of aboriginal legend. In the 
"Leather Stocking Tales," the genius of 
Cooper, the first American novelist, whose 
home was at Cooperstown, has clothed its 
waters and the neighboring hills and val- 
leys with a halo of romance and interest 
that will last forever. " From the « Haunted 
Lake,' " says a writer, "as Otsego is some- 
times called, seems to come the wail of a 
vanished host. The air is filled with un- 
seen spirits, who pour forth their plaints. 
The very winds are whist, and the ripplings 
of the water on the beach are stilled." 

Otsego Lake. 

O Haunted Lake, from out whose silver fountains 
The mighty Susquehanna takes its rise ; 

O haunted lake, among the pine- clad mountains, 
Forever smiling upward to the skies, — 



140 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



Thrice blest art thou in every curling wavelet, 

In every floating water-lily sweet, — 
From the old Lion at thy northern boundary, 

To fair Mount Vision sleeping at thy feet. 

A master's hand hath painted all thy beauties ; 

A master's mind hath peopled all thy shore 
With wraiths of mighty hunters and fair maidens, 

Haunting thy forest glades forevermore. 

A master's heart hath gilded all thy valley 
With golden splendor from a loving breast ; 

And in thy little church-yard, 'neath the pine-trees, 
A master's body sleeps in quiet rest. 

O Haunted Lake, guard well thy sacred story, — 
Guard well the memory of that honored name ! 

Guard well the grave that gives thee all thy glory 
And raises thee to long-enduring fame. 

— Anonymous. 

rj. The Delaware. 

The last important river of the southern 
division is the Delaware, that is formed by- 
two streams, called the East Branch and 
the West Branch, which rise in the Catskill 
Mountains, and, flowing southwesterly, 
unite near the northeast angle of Pennsyl- 
vania. The Delaware then proceeds south- 
east in a winding course, and forms the 
boundary between Pennsylvania and the 
Counties of Delaware, Sullivan, and Orange. 
The Delaware and Hudson Canal, that 
commences at a dam in the river near Lack- 
awaxen Creek, connects it with the waters 
of the Hudson, and the Erie Railway runs 
along its valley for nearly eighty miles. At 
Port Jervis, in Orange County, where there 
are extensive car-works and glass factories, 
the river is turned sharply to the southwest 
by the impassable barrier of the Kittatinny 
Mountains. 

Like the Susquehanna, the upper waters 
bf the Delaware are shallow and narrow, 
but its rafting business is large. The chief 
tributaries of this river, in New York, are 
three streams from Sullivan County. The 



Beaverkill flows into its eastern branch, 
through a wild region, where the forests 
throw their deepest shades, and the scream 
of the cougar is still heard from the moun- 
tain side ; and, a few miles above Port 
Jervis, the Delaware is entered by the little 
Mongaup River, whose picturesque falls 
roar down, deep-toned and sullen. 

" Swift as an arrow from the bow, 
Headlong the torrent leaps, 
Then tumbling round, in dazzling snow 

And dizzy whirls it sweeps ; 
Then, shooting through the narrow aisle 
Of this sublime cathedral pile, 
Amid its vastness, dark and grim, 
It peals its everlasting hymn." 

— A. B. Street. 

At Port Jervis, where the Delaware is 
joined by the Neversink River, the scenery 
is very fine, and attracts many visitors. It 
is at this and other points, where the river, 
hemmed in by high hills, is contracted into 
a narrow bed, that occur the disastrous 
freshets for which the Delaware is noted. 
With the early spring rains it suddenly 
rises from its winter prison, and huge bodies 
of ice, hurled by the flood around a sharp 
curve or bend in the river, are so piled up as 
to form an immense " ice-jam" across the nar- 
row gorge. Thus choked in the flow, the 
waters inundate the country above. 

Hour after hour uprears the wall, 

Until a barrier huge and tall 

Breasts the wild waves that vain upswell 

To overwhelm the obstacle : 

They bathe the alder on the verge, 

The leaning hemlock now they merge, 

The stately elm is dwindling low 

Within the deep ingulfing flow, 

Till, curbed thus in its headlong flight, 

With its accumulated might, 

The river, turning on its track, 

Rolls its broad speeding volumes back. 

— A.B. Street. 



NEW YORK. 



141 



But when the icy barrier finally gives 
way, and the imprisoned waters are let 
loose, the loss of property, and even of life, 
is sometimes very great. The floods sweep 



everything from their path for miles along 
the valley below ; and. trees, bridges, cattle, 
and dwellings are carried away by the rush- 
ing, resistless torrent. 



CHAPTER III.— INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



New York has no rival among the states 
in the extent and value of its commerce. 
One angle of the state rests upon the Atlan- 
tic Ocean, another reaches north to the St. 
Lawrence River, while a third stretches 
west to the Great Lakes and the valleys 
and streams connected with the Mississippi. 
The state is thus placed at the heads of the 
great valleys and waterways of the country, 
and is united with them by its own system 
of valleys and waterways that traverse the 
state in all directions. Through or along 
these, also, have been constructed numerous 
canals and railroads — great channels of 
communication — that develop the state's 
resources and help it to control the com- 
merce of the country. 

Of the ten principal canals, having a total 
length of nearly 900 miles, the Erie is the 
grand trunk, affording a continuous water- 
channel from Lake Erie to the Hudson 
River, and thence down the river to the 
port of New York. It was completed in 
1825 at a cost of nearly eight million dol- 
lars ; but its enlargement and other altera- 
tions have brought up the cost to over fifty 
millions. Its average width is about seventy 
feet at the surface, and it has seventy-two 
locks. At Lockport, Niagara county, there 
are five locks which give a rise of fifty-six 
feet from the level of the Genesee valley to 
the level of Lake Erie. Many other canals 
unite with the Erie or join important lakes 
and rivers, the whole forming a body of 
navigable waters of vast extent. 

The canals, and the prominent railway 
lines, carry to New York City the greater 
part of the surplus products of the Western 



States and of Canada. The commerce of 
the city is further increased by a large 
coasting trade, and by the railroads of New 
Jersey and the South, of Pennsylvania, and 
of New England, that converge there. One- 
half of the exports and more than two- 
thirds of the imports of the country pass 
through New York harbor. 

The manufacturing industries of the state 
are found in every section, and comprise an 
infinite variety. They employ nearly one 
fourth of the capital invested in manufac- 
tures in the United States, and their pro- 
ducts have a corresponding extent and 
valuation. In agriculture, New York is in 
some respects the leading state. Although 
four states rank higher in area of farm land, 
in the value of its farms and of its farm pro- 
ducts New York is only exceeded by Ohio 
and Illinois, respectively. While California 
leads all the states in the amount of barley 
raised, New York is second on the list. But 
little of its soil is unproductive. 

Live stock is raised, and hay is grown, 
in immense quantities. These, with the 
dairy products — butter and cheese — are the 
chief agricultural industries, which include, 
besides the staple cereals of the rich terraces 
and lowlands of the western section, the 
broom-corn of the Mohawk Valley ; the 
tobacco of Onondaga, Chemung, and Steu- 
ben counties ; the hops of Ontario, Madison, 
Oneida, Otsego, and Schoharie ; and the 
grape and other fruit of the central, lake, 
and river valleys. The state ranks first of 
all in its fruit products. 

The mineral wealth of New York is con- 
siderable. We have already referred to the 



142 



GEOGRAPHY, INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES. 



rich iron deposits of the Adirondack region, 
where, it has been said, "the beds of the 
rivers are of iron, and the foundations of the 
mountains are laid upon the same material." 
Iron mines are also found in Wayne, Oneida, 
and Duchess counties; flagstones and 
cement in Ulster county ; gypsum 1 in 
Onondaga; marble in Westchester and at 
Glens Falls ; and limestone in abundance at 
many points. The gas-wells 2 of Bloomfield 
in Ontario county, and of Fredonia in Chau- 
tauqua count) r , are of much local importance; 
and petroleum 3 , as we have seen, is obtained 
in the Alleghany Valley. The salt-springs 
of Syracuse and of Warsaw have already 
been mentioned. 

Summer Resorts. 

So great are the multitudes of people 
that leave the crowded cities in midsummer 
to seek health and recreation in purer air 
and change of scene, that they have given 
increased importance to many an inland 
town or village, and many a seaside resort. 
Tens of thousands from the country, also, 
are attracted to these places, and the rail- 
roads reap rich harvests from the increase 
of travel occasioned by the general summer 
exodus. 

1 Gypsi'M, or sulphate of lime, is a common rock mineral, 
usually white, but sometimes colored by foreign substances, and 
consisting of sulphur, lime, and 21 per cent, of water. Sel'enite 
and alabaster are varieties of gypsum. As the most important 
deposit of it is near Paris, France, it is commonly known as 
Plaster of Paris. When the gypsum rock is calcined its propor- 
tion of water is driven oft", and if it be then ground and mixed with 
water it becomes plaster, but soon hardens, and is therefore much 
used for plaster casts When mixed with glue water, or sand and 
pulverized marble, it is called stucco, and is much used as a plaster 
for internal decorations ; but its chief use is as a fertiliz-r for soils. 
In its preparation for this purpose the gypsum rock is first ground 
to powder and then calcined As it easily absorbs moisture it 
should be carefully protected from it until wanted. About 100,000 
tons of it are annually produced in New York. 

2 Combustible Natural Gas has long been known to issue 
from the earth, and it is obtained in some places in immense quan. 
tities by boring. It is of variable composition, but light carburetted 
hydrogen gas (carbon and hydrogen), or marsh gas, is its principal 
constituent. In 1886 this gas was used for manufacturing pur- 
poses on a small scale in eight towns in New York, twenty-four 
towns in Pennsylvania, and in five in Ohio. (See under Pennsyl- 
vania, p .) 

'•Petroleum. Seepage , under Pennsylvania. 



The most fashionable of these resorts in 
this state is the village of Saratoga Springs, 
32 miles northwest of Albany. It has a 
resident population of about 12,000, while 
the visitors during the summer often num- 
ber, in the aggregate, 50,000. The twenty- 
eight medicinal springs found here, and the 
many stately elms, are almost the only fea- 
tures of interest in the natural scenery, 
although Saratoga Lake, three miles east of 
the village, has many and varied attractions. 
Still farther east, near the Hudson, is the 
scene of Burgoyne's surrender, in 1777, 
where, as the poet Halleck says : — 

The forest leaves lay scattered cold and dead, 
Upon the withered grass that autumn morn, 

When, with as withered hearts, 

And hopes as dead and cold, 
A gallant army formed their last array 
Upon that field, in silence and deep gloom, 

And at their conqueror's feet 

Laid their war-weapons down. 

There are many other medicinal springs 
that have numerous visitors during the 
summer season. Among these may be 
mentioned Massena Springs, near the 
Raquette River, in St. Lawrence County, 
and Sharon Springs, in a valley of Scho- 
harie county, surrounded by attractive 
scenery. Not far away from the latter are 
Cherry Valley, the scene of one of the In- 
dian Brant's horrible massacres, and other 
points of historical interest. The waters of 
Richfield Springs, in the adjoining county 
of Otsego, have a high repute for their 
medicinal virtues. Thirteen miles south is 
Cooperstown, another resort, which adds to 
its own charms those of Otsego Lake. 
Other medicinal springs are those at Balls- 
ton, six miles southwest of Saratoga ; 
Lebanon, in Columbia county ; Chittenango 
in Madison county ; Clifton, in Ontario : 
Avon Sulphur Springs, in Livingston ; 
Cornwall Mineral Springs in Orange county ; 



NEW YORK. 



143 



and the nine " Oak Orchard Acid Springs," 
all within a circle of fifty rods, in Genesee 
county. 

The Catskill mountains 1 , the Adiron- 
dacks 2 , Lake George 3 , Trenton Falls 4 , the 
Thousand Islands 5 , Watkin's Glen 6 , Niagara 
Falls 7 , Chautauqua Lake 8 , and Coney 
Island 9 , have already been mentioned as 
summer resorts. To these may be added 
Shelter Island at the eastern extremity of 
Long Island, Fire Island in Great South 
Bay, on the southern coast, — and Lake 
Maho'pac, with its beautiful islands and pic- 
turesque scenery, fifty miles northeast of 
New York, in Putnam county. 

1 See p, 116. — 2 p. 117. — 3 p. 130.— * p. 132. — 5 p. 133. — 6 p. 135. — 
" P- J 37- — 8 P- *39- — 9 P- I2 ^- 



Lake of the soft and sunny hills, 

What loveliness is thine ! 
Around thy fair, romantic shore 

What countless beauties shine ! 
Shrined in their deep and hollow urn, 

Thy silver waters lie, — 
A mirror set in waving gems 

Of many a regal dye. 

Oh, pleasant to the heart it is 

In those fair isles to stray, 
Or Fancy's idle visions weave 

Through all the golden day, 
Where dark old trees, around whose stems 

Caressing woodbines cling, 
O'er mossy, flower-enamelled banks 

Their trembling shadows fling. 

— Caroline M. Sawyer. 



